Birst Named Number One Cloud BI Vendor for Second Year in a Row

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - Jul 9, 2013) - Birst Inc., the leader in Cloud BI, announced today that it received the highest score in Dresner Advisory Services' annual Wisdom of Crowds® Cloud Business Intelligence Market Study for the second year in a row, once again earning recognition as the top-rated Cloud BI vendor over peer providers. Cloud BI usage and support is on the rise and so is the innovation around this market segment. According to survey results, Birst's enterprise-caliber Cloud BI platform earned the highest scores, offering users the most valued features and capabilities among Cloud BI vendors.

Investments in Cloud BI continue to increase; compared to traditional BI solutions, this "sea-change" showcases that cloud-based solutions such as Birst offer lower costs, faster deployment and greater flexibility. The in-depth market research reveals there is a market shift occurring, as more organizations require Cloud BI deployment options. In fact, highlighting the growing demand, more than a third of the survey respondents consider Cloud BI to be "Critical" or "Very Important." According to the research, top perceived benefits of Cloud BI include cost, scalability, accessibility, and ease of use.

"We know that more businesses are using Cloud applications today than ever before. Why shouldn't their BI be in the Cloud as well? With Birst's enterprise-caliber Cloud BI solution, users get the power of legacy BI, but with the speed and agility of the Cloud," said Brad Peters, CEO and Co-founder of Birst. "Our ranking in the Wisdom of Crowds Cloud BI study is further indication of how Birst is exceeding customer demands. We're very proud of that achievement."

"While business intelligence has typically seen less adoption in the public cloud than other applications, the 2013 Wisdom of Crowds Cloud BI Study definitely shows an increased demand for Cloud BI," said Howard Dresner, President, Founder and Chief Research Officer at Dresner Advisory Services. "In particular, survey respondents indicated that user demands for ad hoc query, dashboards, and self service data access were driving the interest in and deployment of Cloud BI solutions."

The 2013 Wisdom of Crowds Cloud Business Intelligence Market Study provides a wealth of information and analysis, offering value to both consumers and producers of BI technology and services. This year, the research group collected 1,182 completed surveys, which represents an increase in participation of 40 percent over 2012. Participants responded to an online survey and the study was open for input to any valid and qualified users with first-hand BI vendor and product experience. Vendors were ranked using 36 different criteria on a scale ranging from "Critical" to "Not Important." Survey criteria included features, architecture and security of Cloud Business Intelligence solutions.

To learn more about this year's survey and Cloud BI, join Howard Dresner and Birst for a special webinar entitled Everything You Need to Know About Cloud BI: Understanding the 2013 Wisdom of Crowds® Cloud BI Market Study and a New Approach to Business Intelligence on August 8, 2013, at 10:00 am PT. Please register online.

Access a complimentary copy of the 2013 Wisdom of Crowds Cloud Business Intelligence Market Study by visiting the Resource Library on Birst.com.

About Birst
Birst is the only enterprise-caliber Business Intelligence platform born in the cloud. Less costly and more agile than Legacy BI and more powerful than Data Discovery, Birst is engineered with an automated data warehouse and rich, visual analytics, to give meaning to data -- all types and sizes. Coupled with the agility of the Cloud, Birst gives business teams the ability to solve real problems. Fast. Find out why Gartner named Birst a Challenger in its most recent BI Magic Quadrant and why more than a thousand businesses rely on Birst for their analytic needs. Learn to think fast at www.birst.com and join the conversation @birstbi.