SaaS BI: The Expectations and Trends

First of all, let's make the distinction that SaaS is not Cloud.  The first is a licensing model and the latter, in lay terms,  is a network of platforms and applications not managed by your organization.  So let's talk about BI on the cloud using a SaaS model.

There are the traditional players like IBM, SAP, and MicroStrategy who are transitioning their products to the cloud.  Then there are then new players like Gooddata and Birst.  Question is whether SaaS BI is mature enough yet?  Is this all white noise or is something interesting happening here?

Gartner's Hype Cycle indicates that cloud BI is "sliding into the trough"whereas Mobil BI, Enterprise Metadata Management, and Logical Data Warehouses are "at the peak".  According to a study by MarketsandMarkets, the global cloud BI market is expected to grow to 16B+ from the current 5B between 2013 and 2018.   That's huge!

What is supporting this trend?  Certainly the increase in big data analytics.  Added to this is that cost of managing traditional BI - people, infrastructure, licenses, outside consultants - is becoming increasingly challenging as IT budgets fall.  Most enterprise apps used to be on in-house infrastructure.   Salesforce, NetSuite, ZenDesk and others have changed that paradigm.  And now with Workday, we are seeing SaaS applications for finance and HR on the cloud.   All this points to a large growth in data available on the cloud.

Naturally, the talk about "BI in the Cloud" and correspondingly "SaaS BI" is getting louder.  The trend towards more data on the cloud is tempered with more data "siloed" in the cloud.  How do you cut across various SaaS solutions (Salesforce + Workday for example) to get the enterprise view that traditional BI delivered so well?

More - on SaaS BI: What is It? - to follow.