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Market maturity and Microsoft lead Gartner's latest business intelligence report.

Consolidation was predicted and low and behold that is exactly what happened with enterprise software vendors SAP, Oracle and IBM acquiring top BI pure-players Business Objects, Hyperion and Cognos, respectively. Meanwhile, Microsoft, not one to be left behind, made its first appearance in the report's leaders' quadrant, helping fuel BI's continuing transition from an expensive, strategic tool to a commoditized, mature technology.

The four mega-vendors -- SAP, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft -- now offer similar, comprehensive BI tools and technologies, the report stated, and together control more than two-thirds of the market. As a result, Gartner expects BI prices to fall. OUCH!

"Where you've got a large number of vendors offering roughly equivalent capabilities, then it leads to some level of commoditization," said Neil McMurchy, a Gartner analyst and co-author of the report. "And in that sort of environment, inevitably, there's more price competition." Gartner placed no fewer than seven vendors in this year's leaders' quadrant.

Further, McMurchy said recent market consolidation has effectively eliminated any "middle ground" in the BI market, leaving only mega-vendors on one end of the spectrum and small, niche players on the other -- a common occurrence in mature markets. The good news for users is that with a number of well-proven vendors offering high-quality products, finding a solid BI tool is no longer a problem.

Market maturity and Microsoft lead Gartner's latest business intelligence report