BI and Car Wrecks

If you do not know about this, be sure to read my earlier post titled “Hitting Stumps.” Of course, wrecking cars is just a lead-in to argue that large companies often wrestle away good ideas from innovators and stomp the life out of them.

As an illustrative hands-on example, type in the old URL for Cognos (http://www.cognos.com) or Business Objects (http://www.businessobjects.com).

That’s okay, I’ll wait for you.

Welcome back. When you tried to go to those product websites, you were instead redirected deep into the bowels of the mega-vendors which years ago acquired those two leading BI firms. Since then, neither brand has displayed much innovation. Both have been too busy being assimilated into their respective 800-pound gorilla corporate cultures.

Few pure-play BI software vendors remain in the industry: Information Builders and MicroStrategy are two that come to mind. It is probably not surprising that these independent vendors have been remarkably innovative lately, jumping into emerging markets such as mobile BI and social media analytics.

But enough about today’s BI software, read about the first car wreck that happened 120 years ago.