The business intelligence market is undergoing a fundamental sea-change, with mega-vendors dominating sales, according to the latest figures from analyst Gartner.

In 2007 Business Objects claimed a 18.2 per cent share of the market, with revenue of $939.6m (£477m); SAS held second place a 14.4 per cent market share and revenue of $752.3 (£382); third-placed Cognos had a 13.7 per cent market share and $710 (£360) revenue.

Gartner noted consolidation had heightened the shift towards the big players. At the start of 2007, Oracle, SAP, IBM and Microsoft accounted for just one-fifth of BI sales. By the end of 2007, acquisitions meant those companies accounted for two-thirds of sales.

But Gartner analyst Dan Sommer suggested smaller independent BI vendors still have an important role to play in the BI market because they will be driven to innovate quicker than the stack vendors in order to compete.

Sommer highlighted examples such as BI firm Spotfirm, a pioneer of interactive virtualisation, which allows users to view multiple dimensions of data from one interface. Sommer also pointed to BI pure players that hold advanced search capabilities as particularly innovative, such as Endeca and Autonomy.

Sommer added that in-memory BI analytics specialist QlikTech had experienced the biggest increase in market share if acquisitions are not taken into account. “Although it is still only two per cent of the market, its growth shows great potential,” he said.

Reasons given for QlikTech’s popularity included the amount it spends on research and development because of its large venture capitalist backing, a particularly user-friendly interface that can be demonstrated on the spot in sales meetings with potential customers, and its money back guarantee that gives a degree of security to a customer’s BI investment.