The increasing success of the recent business intelligence revolution capitalizes on the main promise of technology — making business easier and more efficient.

Today business intelligence products and services allow companies to quickly and easily access information and share this information with those who need it. Typically this information is from Oracle databases, multi-dimensional cube databases, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel systems and numerous other business applications. The hook of business intelligence is making all of this information available through one system that takes all the different sources of information into account.

Effective business intelligence systems are lauded by companies worldwide for the ability to increase revenue, control costs and improve competitive advantage.

At the heart of business intelligence success is developing a plan for successful deployment, choosing the right vendors and, above all, picking the right business intelligence product to fit a business.

The Stamford, Conn.-based research firm Gartner Inc. estimates that the business intelligence software market is on a constant growth path for the next several years — hitting approximately $3 billion in 2009.

Varied estimates had the market hitting just over $2 billion in 2006.

According to Gartner, with companies around the world having spent more than $40 billion in the past few years on business applications, such as enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management, there are significant volumes of data that need to be turned into meaningful insight to measure performance, respond to market changes and opportunities and, in some cases, comply with complex regulations.

In 2006, Gartner surveyed 1,400 chief information officers and found that business intelligence was the most highly ranked technology priority, with plans for budget increases on average of 4.8 percent.

Gartner predicted that business intelligence will become increasingly crucial to running a business as all companies need to manage information. In addition, the firm expects business intelligence will become part of business innovation as companies use it to optimize their business and separate from the competition.

To get the full benefit of business intelligence, Gartner advises companies to: develop user skills and a culture in the use and analysis of information as an integral part of achieving business objectives; change the way business intelligence is integrated into business processes; and change the way the information architecture and application portfolio are implemented and managed.

With the business intelligence market surging there are numerous companies chomping at the bit to get a piece of the pie.

"There has been a proliferation of business intelligence tools over the last five to seven years," said George Langan, chief executive officer of business intelligence company eXpresso. "Business intelligence is a huge business."

The Menlo Park, Calif.-based eXpresso is looking to carve out its niche in the business intelligence market with a hosted online service that allows users to share and collaborate on any Microsoft Excel file available from any computer or Web browser.

According to Langan, the company, which launched its service this month and is backed by $2 million in venture capital, is aiming to overcome a major flaw in Excel — namely that multiple users cannot collaborate on the same spreadsheet at the same time and that many companies find themselves with multiple version of the same spreadsheet on different computers across the business.

It is not a small problem and one that has come to plague most businesses considering the proliferation of Excel. "Our business world has become a subculture that relies on Excel spreadsheets for everything," Langan said. "Excel has really become the de facto standard for running business today."

Through its online service, eXpresso aims to conquer Excel's problems, allowing for many different authorized users to view a single spreadsheet, make and track changes to it, receive alerts on changes and compare old spreadsheets to new ones. The service even features an online chat that allows users to discuss the spreadsheet while they all look at it. "As soon as we [upload the changes to eXpresso] what we now have is a single version of the truth," Langan said. "The single version of the truth is incredibly important to financial and production people.

"It is really a very simple, easy way to take what you are doing now … and make a complete repository for it," he added.

Companies pay a license fee per user for eXpresso's service. However, the company also has a free version for non-corporate users. Langan said the goal is to have over 100,000 users by the end of 2008 — approximately 80,000 paid and 40,000 free.

The San Mateo, Calif.-based LucidEra Inc. is also looking to cash in on the need for business intelligence tools with its hosted on-demand reporting and analysis service.

"We give managers and employees with companies the ability to inspect and analyze data from across the company," said Ken Rudin, chief executive officer of LucidEra, which is backed by $7 million in venture capital from Benchmark Capital and Matrix Partners.

"[For most businesses] the question is how do I bring all this information together," he added. "The answer is most people don't. Most people are just stuck looking at one piece of the puzzle."

Typically the big companies of the world have had an answer to this question by designing customized, complicated and expensive business intelligence systems, Rudin points out.

"The problem with these traditional solutions is that often the solution was as complicated as the problem which it solved," Rudin said. "I just fundamentally believe that this is the wrong approach. It is too expensive, too hard to use and too hard to maintain."

Rudin and his company have specifically designed their product for mid-sized companies and have emphasized making it easy to use. By hosting the system through the Web, LucidEra has also lifted the burden of systems management, allowing companies to focus on what really matters — using the data that is pooled.

"You don't need a complicated solution in-house," said Rudin. "Most big companies are spending all their energy just getting you the report."

"We are saying business intelligence used to be complex, time consuming and expensive — we have now made it simple to set up, simple to use and simple to buy," he added.

LucidEra follows the software as a service business model and, targeting the mid-market companies, charges $2,900 a month for a 100-user license.