Do we really affect so few

After re-listening to a recent interview with Cognos CEO Rob Ashe, he mentioned a statistic that I missed the first time through.

"Only 15% - 20% of users actually access data through BI."

I understand that stats such as this are usually twisted and bent to meet the need of the audience. And in this case, he was promoting their partnership with Google to create "easy enterprise BI search" capabilities. This statistic would definitely support the Cognos/Google partnership, but the low number was surprising to me. Taking a quick head count of previous projects, the math didn't match. The number of named user licenses sold seemed to far out number Rob's 20% of the organization. Could Cognos, a per user licensor, reach $877 million annual revenues in 2005 with just 20% of users?

So has Rob hit the mark? Do oil digging companies with workers on oil rigs, construction firms filled with trades people, and law firms, meet that low percentage of BI users? Probably. As most employees are in the field. But information soaked companies that rely on analyzing data to do their business need easy access to accurate and timely information. You may even see your senior management using BI tools to get their answers.

Are there any readers that can substantiate (or debunk) his claim from an industry study or their own research?