The Middle East can be a tough place to do business – even for BI vendors.

Last year BO’s major Middle East partner, BSG, switched from BO to Cognos. Score one for Cognos.

Then this week Cognos man in the Middle East, David Brierley, made a “shock” switch to Business Objects, and is now the BO regional general manager. Score one for BO.

Both companies know that the amount of money flowing (literally) in that region requires a strong vendor presence. Read more about this in the following article from IPT.net, my source for this post.