Research house Gartner should know. It makes it its business to look into the future and warn clients of speed bumps ahead.

Although it says some business intelligence (BI) vendors reported revenue growth in 2002, overall preliminary revenue figures indicate that the market has experienced a small decline. The BI market, Gartner warns, is not immune to spending pressures in organisations and continuing market consolidation is being observed.

There is little doubt BI vendors today face the spectre of longer sales cycles, smaller deals and agonising over whether they can afford to offer even larger discounts than ever before. And this worldwide situation has implications locally.