META Group Finds Large Organizations Require Three to Five Business Intelligence Tools METAspectrum Evaluation of Business Intelligence Market Released Today

STAMFORD, Conn. (April 2, 2003) ? META Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: METG) today announced the availability of its newest METAspectrum

(superscript: SM )evaluation for the business intelligence (BI) tool and platform market. Business intelligence vendors provide tools and platforms that enable the delivery of information to decision makers.

“For now, large end-user organizations need to select vendors from four categories ? enterprise reporting, ad hoc query and analysis suites, OLAP servers, and analytic dashboards ? to meet requirements,” says David Folger, vice president with META Group's Enterprise Analytics Strategies. “In four to five years, it will be possible to reduce the number of vendors to one primary vendor, supplemented by one or two niche players. End users should eventually center their BI architecture on vendors likely to emerge as full-suite suppliers.”

Vendors in the BI space have found success by targeting two categories of buyers. Some vendors focus on end-user lines of business (LOBs) and departments (e.g., marketing, finance) and primarily sell solutions, while other vendors are very successful selling to IT organizations. Businesses continue to invest in BI technology to enhance decision making.

Key Findings and Guidance

This evaluation looks at 19 vendors and considers tools utilized by end users and IT to develop and deliver reports and models, as well as platforms for building complex analytic applications.

SAS, SAP, Business Objects, and Cognos are the leaders in the

BI market.

The leaders have broad product lines and are financially

strong enough to keep R&D spending at a high level.

Most challengers have point products with important

functionality, but lack the broad product lines of the

leaders.

There are no followers given the maturity of this market.

The BI market experienced modest growth (5%-10%) in 2002, but

growth should return to 20%-25% as soon as economic conditions

improve.

To learn more about the METAspectrum methodology, visit www.metagroup.com/metaspectrum or call (800) 945-META .