So Oracle did not make it to the Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms?

Earlier this month Gartner released a new version of the Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms. This release has caused a lot of noise in the Analytics Market. Vendors have changed quadrants or even disappeared completely (eg. Oracle).

Traditionally, the Analytics Market is characterized by IT-led buying. Over the last years there is a transition ongoing towards Business-led buying. IT-led buying focusses on governance, consistency and scalability. Business-led buying on the other hand has a focus on speed and discovery.

So why did Oracle disappear from the Magic Quadrant? Oracle and Gartner have a different view / opinion when it comes to Business Intelligence & Analytics.

Gartner writes the following in their Summary; “The BI and analytics platform market’s multiyear shift from IT-led enterprise reporting to business-led self-service analytics has passed the tipping point. Most new buying is of modern, business-user-centric platforms forcing a new market perspective, significantly reordering the vendor landscape.” 

Oracle’s Business Analytics Product offering focusses on IT as well as the Business. It’s Oracle’s vision to support both to be able to realize the full potential of Analytics.

Since Oracle acquired Siebel, Oracle offers a platform; OBIEE, which supports the IT-led buying. Over the last years Oracle experienced a lot of competition from companies like QlikView and Tableau. These companies have successfully targeted the Agile / Self-Service preferences of the Business. Oracle was not able to compete with these companies. Last year Oracle has launched their Oracle Data Visualization (Visual Analyzer) product. Visual Analyzer is Oracle’s answer to QlikView and Tableau. Now Oracle is able to service both IT as well as the Business.

This is the difference between the view / opinion of Gartner versus Oracle. Gartner focusses in its Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms on the Business and Self-Service. Oracle focusses both on IT and the Business. Oracle offers OBIEE (IT) and Visual Analyzer (Business) On Premise or BICS (IT) and Visual Analyzer (Business) in the Cloud. 

The confusing thing might be that Gartner shifted its focus to solely Business Intelligence and Analytics for the Business, while the name of the Magic Quadrant still is the same as last year.

For me it is not a matter of right or wrong, but I think it is good to see things in context.

I believe in Oracle’s strategy when it comes to Business Intelligence and Analytics. If necessary or desired, I would be happy to put things in context.

Daan Bakboord