Intelligent Enterprise

Business Objects and Red Hat agreed to join one another's technology partner programs as a part of a pact to co-market business intelligence tools on Red Hat's Enterprise Linux platform.

Business Objects and Red Hat will enter joint marketing and selling programs to push the open-source operating system for BI. Both firms maintain that Linux serves as a reliable platform for running BI, at less cost than other operating systems.

The deal provides further evidence that Business Objects is betting on a growing market for business intelligence running on open source in the coming years. In August, the BI software maker launched its BusinessObjects XI platform, Crystal Reports Server software and BusinessObjects Data Integrator on Linux.

Research firm IDC forecasts demand for BI on Linux growing at a compound annual growth rate of almost 65 percent through 2009.

"While other business intelligence vendors have been content to just dabble with Linux, Business Objects is helping to drive the future of BI on Linux with partners like Red Hat," Business Objects VP of alliances Jon Dorrington said in a statement.

However, other BI firms do make their products available on Linux. Cognos debuted its ReportNet tool on Linux last year, and Hyperion's Performance Suite product runs on Linux as well. MicroStrategy announced support for 64-bit Linux in its chief software platform this summer.

This month, Business Objects rival Information Builders began jointly promoting BI on Linux with resellers of IBM mainframes and servers.