The growing reliance on business analytics at the enterprise level to improve strategic operational decision making and increase corporate competitive advantage is driving what IDC estimates to be a $20 billion market for business analytics development tools and packaged intelligence applications. Oracle remains a leader of the business analytics market, according to an IDC 2007 forecast report. On top in terms of both revenue and market share, Oracle is nevertheless closely followed by SAS Institute, SAP, IBM and Microsoft, the report stated.
