HP To Augment BI/DW With Knightsbridge Acquisition

HP recently announced its intention to acquire Knightsbridge Solutions, a services company specializing in the information management areas of Business Intelligence (BI), Data Warehousing (DW), data integration and information quality.

According to analysts at research firm Gartner, HP will advance its position among BI and DW providers by adding Knightsbridge’s targeted consulting expertise to HP’s professional-services offerings.

“Knightsbridge has been a strong contender in the North American BI and data integration markets, differentiating itself from other “boutique” vendors through its range of capabilities, and from larger consulting firms through its focus. This balance allows it to act as a local provider while having the breadth and depth of a large firm,” says Gartner.

According to the research firm, HP has got more aggressive regarding its position in the BI and data integration markets in recent months. The Neoview product combines HP hardware with NonStop parallel database.

This provides the market with an enterprise data integration/DW platform with appliance-like characteristics. Gartner believes the acquisition is part of HP’s go-to-market strategy to build a complete portfolio of BI services, solutions and products.

Gartner expects HP to leverage both Knightsbridge’s competitive product knowledge and implementation services expertise. The cross-vendor approaches of Knightsbridge will complement HP implementation services.

With Knightsbridge, HP Services acquires an experience base that includes tools from companies such as Ab Initio, Business Objects, Cognos, Informatica, IBM and NCR/Teradata.

HP is not noted as a systems integration provider in BI/DW, while its peer competitors have deliberate services strategies in this area. This acquisition is focused on the core BI domain and impacts that area of professional services. A services group that handles multiple vendor products is important when delivering BI solutions rather than point functionality.

Gartner recommends that HP customers considering BI or DW solutions from HP should review HP’s new, positive point of differentiation when considering purchases, as direct field experience with multiple environments is now available from the vendor.

Also, DW appliance vendor partners of Knightsbridge must prepare for potential competition from the highly specific and focused sales and delivery capability HP is acquiring. Lastly, Gartner feels that Knightsbridge customers should monitor the service provider’s senior staff availability for current projects.