The OLAP and end-user query and reporting tools markets are by far the largest markets and growth is still healthy. Executive information systems is the only BI tools market experiencing single digit growth. There is a great deal of confusion in the marketplace about knowledge management. In some cases, knowledge management is equated with business intelligence. Knowledge management should be seen as complementary to business intelligence from a software perspective.
Business intelligence enables end-users to access primarily structured data.
Knowledge management software, on the other hand, automates the categorization, contextualization, and personalization of primarily unstructured content. Its goals are to enable the timely delivery of information to those who need it when they need it, to identify where expertise resides in order to enable information sharing, and to lessen the ill effects of employee departure by retaining valuable intellectual capital. Over time, business intelligence software will be extended to access unstructured as well as structured content - this is already happening in the enterprise information portal segment. In addition, business intelligence software will be extended to track how and by whom information in accessed to facilitate information sharing and collaboration. As a result of the web, and especially ebusiness, the European data management market is undergoing profound changes.