Business Objects buys hosted BI specialist

Hosted business intelligence specialist Nsite has been snapped up by Business Objects

Business intelligence (BI) software giant Business Objects has stepped up its push into the hosted software market with the acquisition late last week of software as a service (SaaS) specialist Nsite Software.

Business Objects shelled out an undisclosed sum for Nsite, which provides an on-demand application platform allowing its 27,000 current subscribers to build, customise and deploy on-demand apps, including several BI-based applications.

Nsite’s platform, which can be accessed through a browser, features drag and drop functionality plus Java and AJAX-based technology designed to make it easy for firms to build their own functionality. It also integrates tightly with Salesforce.com's hosted CRM suite and boasts wizard-based tools for integrating Nsite hosted software with third party applications, the company said.

Business Objects said it will use the Nsite platform to introduce more hosted BI offerings in addition to the CrystalReports.com on-demand reporting software service that it launched earlier this year.

Steve Lucas, vice president of strategic markets at Business Objects, said that with both companies exploiting service-oriented architectures (SOA), integration of the two portfolios should be relatively simple.

He added that an integrated solution combining Nsite's apps with CrystalReports.com and Business Objects’ Enterprise Platform would be available before the end of the first quarter next year.

The company predicted its expanded SaaS offering would be welcomed by customers as it will offer them a means of accessing BI functionality without the need for large capital investments or ongoing IT support costs.

Lucas also dismissed concerns that BI's reliance on handling highly sensitive corporate data means BI apps are ill suited to hosted delivery. "There has been push back against hosted BI," he admitted. "But it is dissipating rapidly. Just as Salesforce.com got rid of many of the concerns around hosted CRM by becoming credible and reliable, we're doing the same with BI. We expect to have 40,000 subscribers by the end of the year."

In separate news, Business Objects yesterday announced that Crystal Reports for Eclipse - its reporting suite for the Eclipse open source community - has been made available as an integrated reporting component within IBM's Rational Software Delivery Platform 7.0. Business Objects said that the integration would make it easier for developers using the Eclipse-based IBM platform to create, manage and deploy BI reports as part of wider applications.