
So 2007 will be remembered for BI consolidation: Cognos buying Applix, Oracle buying Hyperion, SAP buying Business Objects and IBM buying Cognos. That and the iPhone hype, of course.
In open source SCO's case hit the rocks, Red Hat got a new CEO, and Linux continued to make little impression as a desktop OS! Still, at least it is still making excellent progress as an infrastructure enabler. But what will 2008 have in store for enterprise IT?
My three big predictions are that you'll hear a lot more about 'green IT', business process management (BPM), and performance management (PM).
Companies will still be doing SOA, but they'll in many cases be looking to BPM as a veneer on top of their SOA to give business people more power over their own systems and to free up the IT department a little.
Everyone will come out with a 'green' IT angle, even the least efficient, most polluting equipment providers.
And finally, the platform companies that bought all the BI players will start making a lot of noise about performance management, which some might call the next phase in BI. Taking the power of BI and making it a little easier to use, and a little more tailored to the real needs of the business professional. Watch out for some of the open source BI players to get a bit of a 'halo effect' from this too!
Whatever 2008 holds, we wish all our readers a very Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year!