News just came over the wire that French company Cartesis has been acquired by Business Objects. Extremely big news for this space, especially considering the race that pure play BI companies are in to provide a full service solution combining performance management, risk and other key performance analytics for their clients.

From John Schwarz, CEO of Business Objects.

"The acquisition of Cartesis will allow us to extend our comprehensive solutions for the office of the CFO by providing critical, cross-application and cross-database line of sight to financial and management reporting, including consolidated statements and budgeting - all on the industry's number one business intelligence platform."

Not to get into a huge fight about which vendor does provide the industry's "number one business intelligence platform," but Cognos does not agree that Business Objects is that provider (surprise, surprise!).

Mychelle Mollot, Cognos' VP of market strategy and strategic communications, said this morning, "Cognos sees Business Objects' acquisition of Cartesis as further acknowledgement that the vision Cognos laid out for customers six years ago - of integrated Performance Management comprised of BI, Planning, Consolidation, and Scorecarding - is the vision that customers want. This acquisition is late to the game as Business Objects must now embark on the long process of rationalizing substantial product overlap, technology and business model differences and integrating Cartesis with their core technology," Mychelle said.

OutlookSoft weighs in: According to CEO Phil Wilmington: "The company [OutlookSoft] has consistently attributed ongoing market consolidation as a sign of the shifting needs of global companies that increasngly require a unified solution that effectively addresses all facets of Business Intelligence (BI) and Performance Management (PM). Today’s announcement further validates the strength of the PM market, and demonstrates that the direction of Performance Mangement will be driven by application not BI tools. OutlookSoft remains committed to empowering its global customer base to achieve next-generation Performance Management goals and long-term business success."

Andy Hayler, founder of Kalido and author of the blog Andy on Enterprise Software, said the following:

"Not only it is a software company, but the French history of Cartesis should make it an easy cultural fit for Business Objects. With Hyperion disappearing into the maw of Oracle then there were only so many opportunities out there in this space. Business Objects superior sales and marketing should be able to make more of Cartesis than had been done, and strategically this takes Business Objects up-market relative to its core reporting, which makes good sense."

More as it happens...