Acquisitions bad for customers

In the short term at least. Acquisitions can kill R&D funding and unfocus company direction during the internal integration process. Then there is all the time and effort spent on a new company message announcing the "new" product and service offerings - marketing, architectures, training.

Thank you Fayu for sending in this IT Week article about acquisitions in BI will stem innovation.

As well, it could be that during the Oracle, SAP, and IBM acquisition/integration efforts, it may create a vacuum while these big three BI vendors (geez I guess they are now) focus on internal integration. This downtime vacuum may open up a space in the market for the entrepreneurially minded. I hope it does!

Sure business for the acquired (BO, Cognos, Hyperion) will continue to sell licenses. However I agree with the article that behind the scenes people are going to be pulled into committees, working groups and potentially let go, okay, re-shuffled.

This all equates to not pushing the envelope nor being laser-focused on customer needs and the competition. Unfortunate for them... Opportunity for others!