Keeping Business Objects on track

...Business Objects was not relevant. But we focused on what the issues were. We changed our software development, moved our centre of gravity from Paris to California, and re-established relationships with many partners here — and things improved significantly.

You're one of the few French software entrepreneurs to succeed in this country. Do you have any thoughts as to why there aren't more successful software ventures coming out of Europe?
There's not that many who have succeeded. That's due to several issues. One is that the European market is harder to penetrate because it's not a homogenous market.

Even with the existence of the EU?
Yes. You do business in France and it's not the same as doing business in the UK or Italy or Germany. That creates a bigger hurdle for companies as they develop themselves. There's also a little bit of a vicious circle going on. Because you don't have that many [local tech] companies, you have to develop the talent pool, whereas if you're starting a company in Silicon Valley, everyone knows where they can find the right people.

In a Goldman Sachs survey I read, 79 percent of the respondents said they expected to buy business-intelligence tools or applications in the next year. Has there been a change in the mind of IT about these tools?
IT has viewed business intelligence as a key priority for quite a while. The trend is there because you have a number of companies nearing the end of their implementation of ERP and sales force automation and looking around and asking, "We've done all this work but still don't have good insights into the business." And that's the next step.

We think there's a huge issue in companies today. They have trouble managing their information. They have huge overloads of data and because they don't use it properly, they make lots of bad decisions because they make it on gut feel, and not on the data. Our mission is to ban ignorance; we want to enable the intelligent enterprise.

Your Q2 numbers beat estimates. But the competition is heating up. Do you think your segment of the business is likely to get more intense come the autumn?
In all markets that become more visible with more growth — competition should be expected. In the past year or so, we've really taken a leap forward to become the clear number one in the space. Now, there are larger vendors, like Microsoft or SAP, who would like to have a slice of that pie.

OK. Let's talk about Microsoft. They've had business-intelligence tools in SQL Server for a while, though with limited results. But now they're upgrading SQL Server 2005, and going after the small and medium-sized markets. You've been able to fend Microsoft off until now. But what do you need to do to avoid getting nailed? I don't need to tell you Microsoft's a pretty big company.
I am always very serious about any competition from Microsoft but I believe we will still...

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