Most people shopping for business intelligence tools think they’re sophisticated, observes a sales person who often represents a large vendor in TDWI exhibit halls. Most of these people are deluded.

He may sound harsh, but he observes all this not bitterly but with good humor.

“They buy [BI] like anything else they buy,” he explains. “They put out a bunch of RFPs and go through this whole process and stuff, and eventually they buy the one that’s maroon.”

Over years, he has identified the top three reasons people buy, and the underlying motivation:

1. Career. The chosen tool decides the career of those who will learn it, massage it, and become co-dependent with it. Greed guides the choice; a good choice may ensure steady, lucrative employment for decades to come.

2. The boss’s choice. The boss says, “Buy that one.” Buyers fear defying the boss and like the boss’s power to give status. The blessed few may seem sexy, at least to themselves.

3. Default. They buy one brand and only that brand. They say, “We’re an Oracle shop” or “We’re an IBM shop,” and for them that’s reason enough. These irk this sales person.

The brand loyalists are the ones who seem to irk him the most, even though his brand often benefits from their foolishness.

Even the brand’s high cost can’t shake their trust. “A lot of people assume that more money means more quality and less risk. No, it doesn’t!” he says.

“They buy this big, fancy thing that no one uses.” Instead, many would be better off with a less expensive brand that delivers almost all of the name brand’s features. The left over funds should be spent on training.

The reason many shy away from training? They’d have to admit that there’s ramp-up time. “It’s kind of the Sarah Palin view: ‘Do we really need sophistication?’”

The week before last, I told about the young data analyst who got the door slammed in his data-seeking face, and I asked “why?” This week, a veteran of the data business answered.

He has spent decades at a large company that produces data solutions of all kinds. I’ve known him for two years, mostly as a voice for the technical side of the house.

The obvious answer is that the IT guy in that story is afraid of giving away the jewels. But that can’t be all there is to it, and my IT whisperer explained.

“IT only lives as long as the business side perceives that they have more knowledge,” he said from Texas this weekend. “If the business side thought they could run the systems without IT, [IT] would be out of there and replaced by mamoo [one's favorite pet]. What dollar did IT ever put in the business’s pocket?”

Not even data quality is safe for IT. My source knows a president of a small software-and-services company who told him this summer, “I’m the only one who really cares about data quality. I’m the only one who needs to have all the data hang together. Everyone else is in their own little cubbyhole.” His job is to email others when the data doesn’t all sync together.

We’ll always need data mechanics, of course, just as car owners need people who align wheels and rebuild engines. The difference between now and 100 years ago is that mechanics are now part of the team. So it’ll be in BI.

Members of the “large government organization” my secret source addressed on Thursday are sure of one thing: One day, someone with authority is going to walk in and demand records, complete records, on where how they used the Troubled Asset Relief Program money. These visitors will ask to see where money went and how it got there. And right now.

Such new, rigorous expectations arising in today’s recession will benefit the business intelligence industry, he says. He’s one of the brains at a large tech vendor that sells a well-known BI platform.

“The group today were using language I’ve never heard them use before,” he says. Before, sharing data was was blocked for foolish reasons. “That inertia’s been given a kick in the teeth.”

Expectations have changed within government and outside, he says based on first-hand observations. “Requirements are becoming more stringent and more personal. There’s no more ‘the dog ate my homework.’”

“A lot of people are looking at change,” he says, “and BI is an agent of change.” He imagines what must go on now at General Motors. Projects that would have invited ridicule may now be considered.

This is one in a series of posts on the recession and BI.

What have you observed of the recession’s effects on BI? Tell me here.