Up to 2006 open source business intelligence was made up of Java components focused on specific functions: report edits, OLAP analysis, ETL, etc. These open source components were written and maintained by communities which have progressively evolved into the professional arena.

The current trend is clearly to professionalize open source business intelligence solutions.

The open source approach has become a “business model”, both already in place and also very promising, one in which investors are placing their money. Open source has made it possible to rapidly create key players with global ambition.

It is quite remarkable when we see that in 2008 and 2009, at a time when financers were rare and demanding, both Pentaho and JasperSoft were able to raise highly significant funds.

These editors offer complete business intelligence suites, the technology of which is under their control: the open source business intelligence environment is based on important suites which we analyse below.