In order for smart cities to choose the best business intelligence and analytic platform, IDC Government Insights studied business intelligence and analytic tools and applications from the leading vendors, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, SAS and Tableau -- and found a tight field of leaders.

The “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Smart Cities Business Analytics Software 2015 Vendor Assessment” (Doc #GI259502) evaluated the ability of those companies to provide smart cities with analytic tools capable of most efficiently turning data into useful information.

"The vendors studied for this IDC MarketScape are among the few business analytics vendors that have specific offerings geared towards smart cities and are addressing the most important characteristics for smart cities,” said Ruthbea Yesner Clarke, research director for IDC's global Smart Cities practice.

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According to Clarke, most cities she worked with already have capabilities in place to use business analytics software or have data in formats ready for analyzing. For cities needing more tools, vendors such as Oracle and Microsoft provide services beyond analytics in their technology stack. SAS and Tableau, on the other hand, do not have the same full enterprise suite of software, Clarke said. With data in place, they can layer the analytics on top of other software and give customers an easy-to-use interface.  

IDC MarketSpace gathered criteria and scoring judgments from interviews and surveys with market leaders, users and vendors, end-user experiences and from a review board of IDC experts.