More services are adding a layer of data analytics to their product line-up, and SAP’s not one to miss out on the big opportunity behind big data.  SAP is now offering users of its popular BusinessObjects BI software line-up a bigger bang for their buck with the addition of big data functionality to several core services.

The Business Objects BI suite and BI platform, Edge and Crystal Server are now all available in analytics editions that ship with the Sybase IQ databases and the SAP Data Integrator software for connecting data streams. The vendor is also adding industry-specific data sets that companies can use to set their analytics strategy in motion.

“With the new analytics editions of SAP BusinessObjects BI and SAP Crystal solutions, customers can start driving their own decision revolutions more cost-effectively than ever before,” said John Schweitzer, senior vice president and general manager, Analytics, SAP. “As technologies such as BI, data warehousing and data integration continue to come together, organizations large and small are looking for end-to-end solutions that can turn ‘big data’ into ‘intelligent data’ and quickly answer any business question. The analytics editions take this even further by offering the expert content they need to accelerate return on investment.”

Overall it’s an attractive pricing model for SAP’s four editions, with a roughly 20% uplift for IQ and data integrator added to the base price of the analytics software, SAP explains.

“IQ is typically licensed on a per-core basis, said Tom Traubitz, director of solution marketing…customers of the two lower-end packages are limited to 16 cores, while the two higher-end options include 32 cores,” he said.

The new releases will be made available to both customers and partners. SAP will be selling the four analytics editions as on-premise solutions, and the company says that users can expect cloud-based versions from the channel later on.

Analytics is becoming a very central element of SAP’s strategy across the board, and the same goes for the ecosystem. Resellers play a big role in driving the BI firm’s analytics strategy, namely HANA, forward.

In May Opera Solutions announced plans to make SAP’s in-memory analytics platform a part of its data service portfolio. By marrying its data mining tech with the database Opera is offering a rounded-out solution that doesn’t require a data scientist to run: a big appeal for the enterprises that lack the in-house talent.