Business Objects continued its aggressive midmarket business-intelligence (BI) push Tuesday, adding to its Business Objects Crystal Decisions (BOCD) product line a Professional Edition with data-integration capabilities.
The software vendor also announced a new pricing plan that will make it easier for channel partners to upsell customers to the new product.
The company's midmarket effort, launched three months ago, is designed to compete head-to-head with Microsoft and the reporting and data analysis tools built into its SQL Server database.
"We want to surpass Microsoft in midmarket business-intelligence market share," says Todd Rowe, vice president of the company's worldwide midmarket business.
BOCD Standard Edition, an integrated package of the vendor's ad hoc reporting, data analysis and dashboard tools, debuted in March and anchors the midmarket product line. The new Professional Edition, available now, adds data-integration technology from Business Objects' Firstlogic and Acta Technology acquisitions. That allows businesses to integrate information from multiple databases, applications and other data sources for analysis.
BOCD Premium Edition, incorporating business scorecarding and performance metric applications, is slated for availability in the fourth quarter.
Nearly two-thirds of BOCD sales recorded in the past three months were generated through channel partners, Rowe says. Twenty-two percent were direct sales and the rest were joint sales. The majority of the sales were to new customers, while some owned the older Crystal Reports Server software or were prospects for Business Objects' enterprise business intelligence applications.
Customers also have the option of upgrading from BOCD Standard Edition or from Crystal Reports Server to the BOCD Professional Edition by paying only the price difference. Pricing for the Standard Edition starts at $20,000, while Professional Edition pricing starts at $35,000. That new policy provides channel partners with more upsell opportunities, Rowe says. Upgrades from Professional Edition to the upcoming Premium Edition and to Business Objects' enterprise software will follow the same policy.
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