Month start odds and ends
Yet more consolidation in the BI product space. Every so often one of the major vendors disappears into a larger vendor. Proclarity has been absorbed by Microsoft and no sooner than Oracle had digested a main course of Sibel and its amazing BI tool, it was on to Hyperion for desert; it even had a little time for a morsel between courses, Sigma Dynamics. But small vendors are also being snapped up; especially if they have niche product that fills a void in a product portfolio. Business Objects have been shopping in the performance management (EPM) space - most recently (last month) Cartesis and Cognos bought Celequest at the beginning of the year. Yesterday, saw Spotfire being acquired by Tibco.
Meetings and the like
If you want to present at the UKOUG meeting in December then you only have a few weeks to get that abstract written and in to the organisers for peer-judging. To be honest, I am still thinking of a title, oh, and the content. Content is always difficult in consultancy - you balance giving away your secrets with giving away your customers' and in the end you present something a little less exciting than it could be.May is a busy month for meetings, and there are few that I will sadly miss. A few vendor events here and the BI and Reporting Tools SIG meeting in London and the Database forum in Edinburgh - must take my autograph book to that one!