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I remember the wave of BI vendor acquisitions in 2007-2008 when IBM acquired Cognos and SAP acquired BusinessObjects. Now, 12 years later the wave repeats. Goog

I remember the wave of BI vendor acquisitions in 2007-2008 when IBM acquired Cognos and SAP acquired BusinessObjects. Now, 12 years later the wave repeats. Google is buying Looker. Salesforce is buying Tableau, and probably Qlik will be acquired within the next 1-2 years too.

bardam 7y ago
Qlik was sold to Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm, about two years ago for $3B. Not sure if that's a relative bargain compared to this deal or if it makes the $15.7B look totally unrealistic. As of a few years ago the total revenue of the two firms wasn't that different.
- dgudkov 7y ago
  I've heard that Thoma Bravo specializes on re-selling assets. If that's true then the $15bln sticker on Tableau should only justify and boost their intention to re-sell Qlik.
  - chrisjc 7y ago
    Haven't heard much about Qlik lately. A few years ago we were evaluating Birst and Qlik, and have since settled on Looker and Tableau. Birst end up getting acquired too. https://www.infor.com/news/infor-to-acquire-birst-infor https://www.infor.com/news/infor-to-acquire-birst-infor
  - mbesto 7y ago
    > I've heard that Thoma Bravo specializes on re-selling assets. This is true, because Thoma is a PE firm and is literally in the business of acquiring and selling companies.
woodgrainz 7y ago
Indeed, it's cyclical. About 7 years ago there was a social media platform buying spree. Salesforce bought Radian6 and Buddy Media (for ~$700M). Oracle bought Virtue for $300M. Google made its own acquisitions in the space (Wildfire). But now, Salesforce now has a bigger war chest to play with. Looks like BI is the new hotness.
- chrisjc 7y ago
  I would say all things data is the new hotness. Recently Google bought Alooma, Talend bought Stitch. Personally I'm really interested in who if anyone will buy Snowflake.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
chenster 7y ago
Dont' forget Metabase
- afroboy 7y ago
  Isn't that fully open source project?
  - c0brac0bra 7y ago
    Mostly. It costs $300/mo to remove their branding badge from embeds.
ineedasername 7y ago
My interpretation of the rise of tools like Looker & Tableau is that they happened in part because of that '07-'08 acquisition spree. Neither IBM not SAP capitalized on their investments, and instead their products mostly stagnated. Cognos 11 for example looks more modern bit really isn't much more than a re-skin of a product that hasn't changed much since the release of 8.x. At some point IBM had a Watson-branded product that was supposed to be a Tableau competitor, but it never really materialized and was near completely divorced from Cognos.

bardam 7y ago

Qlik was sold to Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm, about two years ago for $3B. Not sure if that's a relative bargain compared to this deal or if it makes the $15.7B look totally unrealistic. As of a few years ago the total revenue of the two firms wasn't that different.

dgudkov 7y ago
I've heard that Thoma Bravo specializes on re-selling assets. If that's true then the $15bln sticker on Tableau should only justify and boost their intention to re-sell Qlik.
- chrisjc 7y ago
  Haven't heard much about Qlik lately. A few years ago we were evaluating Birst and Qlik, and have since settled on Looker and Tableau. Birst end up getting acquired too. https://www.infor.com/news/infor-to-acquire-birst-infor https://www.infor.com/news/infor-to-acquire-birst-infor
- mbesto 7y ago
  > I've heard that Thoma Bravo specializes on re-selling assets. This is true, because Thoma is a PE firm and is literally in the business of acquiring and selling companies.

woodgrainz 7y ago

Indeed, it's cyclical. About 7 years ago there was a social media platform buying spree. Salesforce bought Radian6 and Buddy Media (for ~$700M). Oracle bought Virtue for $300M. Google made its own acquisitions in the space (Wildfire). But now, Salesforce now has a bigger war chest to play with. Looks like BI is the new hotness.

chrisjc 7y ago
I would say all things data is the new hotness. Recently Google bought Alooma, Talend bought Stitch. Personally I'm really interested in who if anyone will buy Snowflake.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

chenster 7y ago

Dont' forget Metabase

afroboy 7y ago
Isn't that fully open source project?
- c0brac0bra 7y ago
  Mostly. It costs $300/mo to remove their branding badge from embeds.

ineedasername 7y ago

My interpretation of the rise of tools like Looker & Tableau is that they happened in part because of that '07-'08 acquisition spree. Neither IBM not SAP capitalized on their investments, and instead their products mostly stagnated. Cognos 11 for example looks more modern bit really isn't much more than a re-skin of a product that hasn't changed much since the release of 8.x. At some point IBM had a Watson-branded product that was supposed to be a Tableau competitor, but it never really materialized and was near completely divorced from Cognos.