Information Builders
As one of the remaining large independent BI vendors, Information Builders continues to excel and "prove its worth" in enterprise deployments, despite the presence of the megavendors, states the Gartner report. "WebFocus's use of its own iWay Software integration platform makes Information Builders' BI platform one of the best connected in the market," according to the report, "and much better suited to supporting operational reporting than most other vendors."

On the flip side, Gartner cautions that Information Builders has had more success "giving customers the ability to build analytic applications than it has at delivering end-user analysis tools."

In addition, the company needs to "go beyond its 'sweet spot' of operational reporting and information delivery, and build a large number of successful deployments where WebFocus is used for analysis and self-service reporting," notes the report.

Microsoft
Though Microsoft didn't make any huge BI purchases in 2007, it has been quietly ramping up its efforts. Microsoft's "pricing and integration with its Office (including its major CPM-led innovation of 2007, PerfomancePoint Server) and SQL Server products are especially attractive to organizations that have standardized on the Microsoft information infrastructure," states the Gartner report.

Its customers seem satisfied with the quality of its BI software: More than half contacted by Gartner report no problems with the software. "This reflects Microsoft's focus on BI, the strength of its product line management team and the fact that much of its BI technology has been internally developed rather than acquired," the report notes.

However, because Microsoft was late to the "BI Ball," it's still catching up to its rivals. According to its customers, the world's largest software vendors "still lags behind pure-play vendors in terms of metadata management, reporting, and dashboard and ad hoc query capabilities," states the Gartner report. Microsoft claims that it's in the BI market for "the long haul," and analysts expect that it will become a strong competitor as it grows its product offerings.

Microstrategy
Another independent BI vendor, Microstrategy is known for building its BI products "organically," states the Gartner report. "This is evident in its tight platform integration, very scalable relational OLAP architecture and complete object-oriented metadata model," notes the report. In addition, its customers "rated it highest overall in terms of functional match to their needs and in terms of their implementation experience," according to the Gartner customer reference survey.

Negotiating with Microstrategy can be a different story. "Historically, MicroStrategy has refused to alter contractual terms and conditions, has charged 'a la carte' for functionality such as Office integration, has conducted usage audits, and has re-priced maintenance from previously signed contracts," according to Gartner research.