Gartner: Open source BI continues to grow

Systems integrators and original equipment manufacturers are the driving forces behind the growth of open source business intelligence software, according to analyst group, Gartner.

Although the functionality "is not yet on a par with large commercial platforms and is still rarely seen as an enterprise-wide business intelligence standard, open-source BI tool deployment is growing solidly," the analyst firm said.

A large portion of the growth in open-source adoption is coming from the vendors' original equipment manufacturer business, "which cannot be properly sized as many independent software vendors simply use the downloadable version of the open-source BI product and add it as additional functionality in their own applications".

"In addition, system integrators have started to build practices around open-source technology, and they are also implementing business intelligence platforms (mostly reports and dashboards) as part of the contracted solution," the firm said.

The average size deal for an open-source business intelligence contract was approximately $30,000 for a yearly subscription.

But some contracts repeatedly exceeded $500,000 for a multi-year support subscription, "which was in the same ballpark as many commercial counterparts", Gartner found.

"As you might imagine, the increasing open-source traction has not gone unnoticed by the commercial vendors," the firm said.

"While often dismissed as being no competition, even the large established business intelligence vendors have come up with counter measures to address the challenges from the lower-cost competitors."