SAN JOSE, PARIS & RALEIGH, N.Business Objects (Nasdaq:BOBJ) and Linux provider Red Hat (Nasdaq:RHAT) have signed a global alliance with the understanding that each compnay will join the other’s technology partner program. Additionally, each will co-market and sell programs to help their customer base derive the benefit from the use of business intelligence on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform.
“There is a rising interest in Linux-based business intelligence solutions, and over the next five years we expect to see Linux drive significant growth in BI revenues,” said Dan Vesset, research director for analytics and data warehousing software at IDC. “IDC expects the market for business intelligence on Linux to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 65 percent through 2009.”
Business Objects and Red Hat have seen an increase in customer demand for enterprise applications that support Linux. The Linux operating system has the capability to support mission-critical applications such as business intelligence. It offers companies a way to lower their total cost of ownership, in an easy-to-use environment, while maintaining a high level of security and performance. Earlier this year, Business Objects launched BusinessObjects(TM) XI, its industry-leading BI platform, as well as Crystal Reports(R) Server and BusinessObjects Data Integrator on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Business Objects and Red Hat have worked closely to optimize the performance of Business Objects solutions on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system. Deploying Business Objects on Red Hat, customers can distribute information to a broad audience in a secure and robust manner, while reducing the amount of time and effort spent on system administration, training, and data integration. Additionally, Linux presents a low cost, high value alternative to proprietary platforms.
“Over the past 3 years Linux has established itself as a standard platform for enterprise computing,” said Tim Yeaton, senior vice president of marketing at Red Hat.
“While other business intelligence vendors have been content to just dabble with Linux, Business Objects is helping to drive the future of BI on Linux with partners like Red Hat,” said Jon Dorrington, vice president of alliances at Business Objects. “We are hearing the message loud and clear from customers that they want to deploy our industry-leading BI solutions on Linux. We plan to increase the amount of resources we investment in Linux and other open source solutions going forward to take advantage of this growing demand.”
