As regular readers of this blog are aware, I believe that one of the potential trends in business intelligence will be towards “on demand” offerings.  This model avoids the hassle of installation at your own site (with all the complexities of combinations of operating system, database and middleware software versions that implies).  Since it is usually is accompanied by a rental pricing model, this makes it easier to try out from the customer’s viewpoint, whilst from the vendor’s viewpoint this often avoids triggering the dreaded procurement review that bogs down so many sales cycles.  As well as new vendors entering the space, Business Objects has just made a tentative step in this direction by acquiring NSite, a small vendor essentiially providing complementary offerings to the salesforce.com offering. 

I  think that this purchase is less for the application that Nsite has than for the experience that it has in offering software as a service i.e. Business Objects is mostly buying a team of software engineers with relevant experience.  This is probably a good idea, since for all its sales and marketing clout, R&D has been a consistent weak spot for Business Objects over the years.  Judging from the press release it looks like Steve Lucas is behind the acquisition; Steve is a smart guy and understands the need for Business Objects to improve its offerings.

As regular readers of this blog are aware, I believe that one of the potential trends in business intelligence will be towards “on demand” offerings.  This model avoids the hassle of installation at your own site (with all the complexities of combinations of operating system, database and middleware software versions that implies).  Since it is usually is accompanied by a rental pricing model, this makes it easier to try out from the customer’s viewpoint, whilst from the vendor’s viewpoint this often avoids triggering the dreaded procurement review that bogs down so many sales cycles.  As well as new vendors entering the space, Business Objects has just made a tentative step in this direction by acquiring NSite, a small vendor essentiially providing complementary offerings to the salesforce.com offering. 

I  think that this purchase is less for the application that Nsite has than for the experience that it has in offering software as a service i.e. Business Objects is mostly buying a team of software engineers with relevant experience.  This is probably a good idea, since for all its sales and marketing clout, R&D has been a consistent weak spot for Business Objects over the years.  Judging from the press release it looks like Steve Lucas is behind the acquisition; Steve is a smart guy and understands the need for Business Objects to improve its offerings.