BARC has announced the publication of the highly-anticipated results of The BI Survey 12, the world’s largest and longest-running annual survey of BI software usage.

Nearly 3,000 respondents from companies across all industry sectors in over eighty countries answered questions on their experiences with BI software. Based on this wealth of end-user feedback, The BI Survey 12 results provide detailed comparative analysis of a record twenty-seven products from vendors including IBM, Microsoft (MSFT), MicroStrategy (MSTR), Oracle (ORCL), QlikTech (QLIK) and SAP.

And for the first time ever, The BI Survey findings have also been made available for analysis on an iPad app, enabling buyers of BI technology to quickly compare leading software vendors across a range of key criteria such as query performance, data volume, customer satisfaction and project length.

“We are always striving to offer our customers the flexibility to access the information that they need to support their BI projects,” said Carsten Bange, CEO of BARC. “Every company evaluates different software and has particular priorities and requirements. The new iPad app, along with The BI Survey Analyzer - our online analysis tool – make it possible for anyone with an interest in the BI market to tap into this database of end-user feedback and access the information that matches their specific needs.”

Among this year’s vast range of findings, The Survey reveals that organizations that selected BI software primarily for innovative features such as mobile support and collaboration features achieved the greatest business benefits from their implementations.

However, mobile support and collaboration features were also found to be the least likely ‘top-three’ selection criteria used by companies when purchasing BI products. Most companies focused instead on criteria such as ease-of-use for report recipients (40%), ease-of-use for report designers (34%) and fast query performance (28%) when purchasing BI software.

Business Application Research Center (BARC) is a leading independent software industry analyst delivering product evaluations, conferences, market research and consulting to customers worldwide.