The consolidation trend in the BI industry continued today with Business Objects (ticker symbol BOBJ) announcement of their intention to buy Cartesis, who are essentially a poor man’s Hyperion. One in four Fortune 500 companies use Cartesis for financial consolidation, budgeting and forecasting, and they had USD 125M in revenues, but reportedly had struggled with growth. The purchase price of USD 300M is less than two and a half times revenues, so is hardly what you would call a premium price (Hyperion went for 3.7 times revenues), though no doubt Apax, Partech and Advent (the VCs involved) will be grateful for an exit. This is not the first time Cartesis was bought (PWC bought Cartesis in 1999) but Business Objects is a more logical owner. Not only it is a software company, but the French history of Cartesis should make it an easy cultural fit for Business Objects. With Hyperion disappearing into the maw of Oracle then there were only so many opportunities out there in this space. Business Objects superior sales and marketing should be able to make more of Cartesis than had been done, and strategically this takes Business Objects up-market relative to its core reporting, which makes good sense.