Microsoft Set to Stir OLAP Market

Computergram International, Oct 22, 1999

The blossoming online analytical processing market is about to feel the Microsoft heat, according to a report by market analyst Frost & Sullivan. The fact that Microsoft Corp has chosen to enter the market is illustrative of its value, but the software firm may make life far harder for the established players, predicts the report, entitled "US Decision Support System Markets."

The decision support market, 90% of which consists of OLAP tools vendors, is being driven by the massive amounts of data firms are logging from e-commerce as well as by the increasingly fast responses they are forced into by internet competition. The other 10% is from data mining, an area included by only one of the top three players, Cognos, Hyperion and Microstrategy preferring to concentrate on OLAP.

Frost & Sullivan rates high systems cost as one of the factors currently hampering the growth of the market. Microsoft, with its reputation for slashing prices, may turn that model upside down and change a market where vendors compete on functionality into one where pricing is paramount.

Currently worth $732.8m, the market is expected to rise to $1.1bn by 2002, although it is already slowing down with 32.8% annual growth in 1999 falling to 1.2% by 2004.