I'm fed up with 'end-users' - the term, that is. I simply don't believe they exist. Perhaps more accurately, I don't suppose they exist anymore.

In June, 2011 IDC published its Worldwide Business Intelligence Tools 2010 Vendor Shares report (available only to IDC clients or for purchase). This report assesses the BI tools market and includes revenue and market share information for BI software vendors.

What innovative thinkers in Australia and the US are trying to get to right now is a more flexible and responsive model of buying enterprise IT goods and services. Most of the discussion around this in Australia is currently taking place in the context of cloud computing. But there's more to it than that.

Australian software company eMite has scored a sales win from a major IT outsourcer.

- Sponsored Editorial - De Hypotheekshop Centrale Organisatie B.V. is a leading Dutch mortgage advice provider. It operates independently of any financial organisation, maintains a six percent market share and serves more than 15,000 clients annually.

- Sponsored Editorial - Feed The Children - the international, non- profit relief organization - was already using QlikView for its commodities tracking system. But it wasn't until current Vice President of Information Systems, Cody Schilke arrived that QlikView's true capabilities were realized.

- Sponsored Editorial - Everywhere I travel, customers and partners are talking about mobile Business Intelligence. However, they have many questions about best practices for mobile. Sometimes, they have so many questions, and so few answers, that they try to stop mobile BI altogether. I have news: you can't stop it!

Sales and performance management consulting firm, Mercurial, is collaborating with Business Intelligence (BI) vendor,  Information Builders, to launch what the two companies claim is one of Australia's first true cloud-based BI services.

ERP software vendor IFS has updated their ERP software with BI integration, putting business information in front of users while they work.

Yellowfin 5.2 promises wide ranging improvements to the Australian developed BI package.