Every analyst does their predictions for the coming year.  I am no exception.  But first let's take a look back at the predictions I made for 2010 and see how I did.

#1.  Purse strings will loosen.  This did happen as the backlog in demand did create good performance in the Performance Management and BI vendors unilaterally.

#2.  Mega-Vendors will have a Big Year by Targeting PervasivePM. This also was true although I will say that more of the focus of the mega-vendors was on business analytics than integrated performance management.  Business Analytics replaced BI as prevailing definition of the market.

#3.  Best of Breed Makes a Big Comeback.  This also came true with vendors like Clarity Systems, Host Analytics, Tagetik and others having banner years.  Look for new independents to pop up as well.  Many of us are anxiously waiting to see what Proferi (www.proferi.com) brings to market.

#4.  The Cloud Gets Bigger but Finance Lags.  This also came true.  You couldn't read anything last year that didn't have Cloud or SaaS in it somewhere.  If you wanted it to get read you put "Cloud" in the title.  It turned out to be true that Finance lagged but we did see traction in Finance by Host Analytics, Adaptive Planning in Performance Management and also from Saas BI vendors like Birst and Visual Mining targeted directly at Finance.

#5.  There Will be no Acquisitions in 2010.   I stated that IBM, SAP, and Oracle would have acquisitions in 2010 but they would not be related to the performance management market.  I didn't quite get this one right as IBM snapped up Clarity Systems (the #1 independent PM vendor) in late October (couldn't you just wait until January?).  The removal of the top independent vendor did create some ripples in the market (see entry on this topic  as other independent vendors scramble to grab the #1 independent vendor moniker.

#1.  Finance Does Embrace the Cloud.  At least in the mid-market.  Cloud has become so mainstream that Finance organizations in smaller companies with limited  IT resources will follow the trend of cloud adoption.  As you would expect with Finance (genetically programmed to be conservative) they are a little late to the party but they will finally jump on the Cloud bandwagon.

#2.  SAP Will Make a Major Acquisition.  Sybase was certainly a big one for them but they will do something big in BI or predictive analytics this year.  If they don''t I wouldn't be surprised if HP comes calling.  How does SAP, an HP Company sound?

#3.  Mega-Vendors Spend Big on Business Analytics But Not PM.  The mega-vendors see the huge potential of Business Analytics, Predictive Analytics, and Big Data and will spend significantly trying to get the upper hand here.  Spending on innovation in traditional performance management will get less attention leaving the door open for specialist vendors to continue to gain ground with innovative functionality, especially in the mid-market.

#4.  A SaaS BI and SaaS PM Merger.  There will be at least one merger/acquisition that brings together a privately-held SaaS BI vendor and SaaS PM vendor to offer a SaaS BI/PM suite to the marketplace.

#5.  A Rush to the Tablet.  Many Bi vendors are already well on their way here but in 2011 access to performance management applications via the iPad will become much more commonplace and will become an important differentiator for the business user.  I know I should be saying mobile device here but I still am not sold that smartphones are good for this type of application (see blog entry on this topic).