Things are changing, though with the release of Jaspersoft BI Suite 3.5, which will enable users to run their analysis without the need to always have a data warehouse or even a local on-premises installation.

Jaspersoft's open source BI competitor Pentaho is also improving its BI suite, with a new release targeted at the cloud.

Together, the open source BI vendors are trying to shake off the notion that open source merely replicates what already exists in proprietary software. Their new BI releases come at time when enterprises are increasingly looking to cut costs and, in many cases, are exploring Software as a Service (SaaS) and the cloud as vehicles of cost optimization.

"I think we've done a lot of clever thinking internally to help us understand what we need to do differently," Brian Gentile, CEO of Jaspersoft, told InternetNews.com. "We know that as an open source company, if all we do is replicate the BI stacks of the past, we will surely have missed a big opportunity. So I think version 3.5 is a perfect example of doing it better."