SAN MATEO, Calif., December 3, 2007 –- According to business intelligence (BI) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry veterans at LucidEra, the leading provider of simple-to-set-up and use on-demand analytic applications, 2008 will be the year that pre-built business analytic solutions enter the mainstream for companies of all sizes. This trend will also continue to fuel a disruptive force for traditional BI vendors, who will spend significant time and internal resources in 2008 away from innovation and focused on resolving the technical and cultural challenges associated with integrating a stack of complex on-premise product suites into even more elaborate infrastructures from SAP, Oracle, and IBM.

“With the rapid ascent of on-demand business analytics solution providers like LucidEra, mass consolidation among traditional software vendors, and a strong level of interest among prospects and partners, it is clear that 2008 will be a pivotal year for the SaaS movement in this industry,” said Ken Rudin, CEO of LucidEra. “We want the market to know that on-demand analytic applications are real and ready for primetime.”

Forecasting the year ahead, LucidEra executives predict that:

** SaaS BI will gain increased market acceptance. 2008 will be decisive year for BI applications delivered as a service to be recognized as a critical solution in helping companies answer the most important questions about their business. Much in the same way salesforce.com proved to the market the validity of on-demand transactional applications several years ago, SaaS BI vendors will follow a similar path in proving market acceptance in 2008.

** Innovation will be led by newer vendors. Major advancements in web-based business analytics and performance management solutions will continue to be driven by smaller, more nimble vendors who are on the bleeding-edge of innovation. Despite a recent wave of product development stagnation in an attempt to build out broad suites and a busy year of industry-wide consolidation, BI innovation in 2008 will be driven by a select group of companies that are pushing the boundaries of analytic applications and leveraging newer software delivery models like SaaS.

** There will be a shift away from tools towards prebuilt analytic applications. Within the analytic solutions ecosystem, there will be a massive shift away from BI tools and toward simple to install, pre-built analytic applications. Complicated BI tool sets that were utilized on an on-premise basis in the past have resulted in a myriad of challenges surrounding training, customization, migration, and the requirement for constant maintenance. The on-demand model will finally enable vendors and the partner channel to deliver focused analytic solutions by vertical and employee role, without all the headaches associated with conventional BI approaches.

** Applications that integrate data and improve processes across transactional systems will drive the next wave of SaaS. The on-demand revolution began with CRM and other transactional applications that made it simple for companies to capture data and automate business processes. Analytic applications that make it simple to get the data back out of these systems and analyze it to help companies identify ways to improve their processes, while also becoming more agile, will be at the center of the next wave of SaaS applications.

** A new breed of channel partners will emerge. With the advent of on-demand analytic applications, the BI channel approach will continue to evolve in terms of the types of consultative services that will be offered by value added resellers (VARs) and systems integrators (SIs). Historically, the majority of VARs and SIs have focused the bulk of their attention on implementing vast data warehouses and dealing with integration and infrastructure. In 2008 a new breed of channel partners will emerge who leverage SaaS applications to provide more strategic analytic best-practices and performance management consultation that will increase the value of business services they provide to customers.

About LucidEra

LucidEra delivers focused analytic applications built on the industry’s first complete on-demand business intelligence platform. LucidEra Sales Analysis is designed help sales organizations drive sales effectiveness and accelerate pipeline velocity and growth. LucidEra Revenue Cycle Analysis unifies data across CRM systems like salesforce.com, disparate Excel spreadsheets, and financial applications delivering a complete picture of the forecast-to-close process and driving bottom line performance through increased business visibility and predictability. LucidEra was named “company to watch in 2007,” by several editorial and industry influencers. To try LucidEra, visit http://www.lucidera.com, or call 1-866-392-8008.