Business Objects launches midmarket BI suite

Standard Edition suite is targeted at smaller firms

Business Objects will continue its push into the midmarket today with the launch of a business intelligence (BI) software suite aimed specifically at non-enterprise customers.

The company said its new Standard Edition suite had been designed specifically for midmarket firms with sales of less than £600m and would be available immediately priced from €20,000 for five concurrent users.

Todd Rowe, worldwide vice-president of the midmarket for Business Objects, said the "aggressive pricing" would make it more affordable to non-enterprise firms that have previously regarded the technology as too expensive, while tight integration between the new suite and Microsoft Office would make it more accessible to midmarket users unfamiliar with BI tools. "Most people work in the Office environment so this means they don’t have to learn a new technology to exploit the reporting functionality."

The Standard Edition suite is the first in a series of midmarket BI releases planned for this year, the company said. A Professional Edition that adds enhanced data integration functionality capable of accessing data from multiple sources to the Standard Edition's basic reporting, dashboard, auditing and analytics functionality is scheduled to be launched in the second quarter. While a Premium Edition including business performance management functionality such as scorecards is expected by the end of the year.

The company added that all three suites will boast the same code base as its enterprise-scale reporting software, making upgrade paths for growing firms relatively simple.

Rowe said that Business Objects would also work closely with third-party software vendors to develop vertical-specific suites based on its new midmarket offerings. "The aim is to create the equivalent of the salesforce.com AppExchange platform for midmarket BI customers," he said.