As we predicted more than three years ago, BI software and services are converging. Today, Deloitte announced its acquisition of the assets of the BI SaaS vendor Oco.  This is a great confirmation of several trends:

• BI is hot. All of the leading management consultancies and systems integrators are putting BI at the top of their priority lists.
• BI is all about software plus services. There’s no such thing as  “plug-and-play” BI. One always needs to bundle it with services to integrate data, customize metrics and applications, etc.
• BI is a perfect fit for any firm with a software-plus-services offering, as demonstrated by
  • IBM acquisition of PWC, Cognos, and SPSS
  • HP acquisition of Knightsbridge and Vertica
  • SAS acquisition of Baseline Consulting
  • EMC acquisition of Conchango and Greenplum.