New figures from analyst firm Gartner show that the business intelligence (BI) sector is thriving despite flagging IT budgets.

The worldwide appetite for BI platforms, analytic applications and performance management software in 2008 increased 21.7% on the previous year, from $7.2 billion to $8.8 billion.

However, Gartner analyst Dan Sommer said the growth was due largely to industry consolidation and a focus on sales and marketing by large stack vendor, particuarly towards new acquisitions. “Accelerated migrations and upgrades in the installed base are the result,” he said.

Thanks to its 2007 acquisition of Business Objects, SAP accounted for almost a quarter of the market, followed by the SAS Institute and Oracle (both at 14.6%), IBM (11.3%) and Microsoft (7.7%).