Is Open Source BI the way to go? More specifically, is ActuateOne the way to go for SMOs with little or no IT budget and staff?

Actuate thinks so, and presents this 5pp Business White Paper ("ISVs Accelerate Their Applications with BIRT and ActuateOne") to make its case for ActuateOne, built on BIRT. Actuate argues "an IT team may be able to fix, build and customize business intelligence (BI) tools with ease, but if you don’t have an IT team analytics applications may seem unattainable or daunting. While packaged BI seems like the best solution for organizations with a bogged down IT team or a non-existent IT team, the costs of boxed suites can be well out of the range of a normal budget. This white paper explains the benefits of open source BI (OSBI) systems and how companies without an available IT team are still utilizing OSBI." (Note that while BIRT may be "open", ActuateOne is a commercial offering and still probably requires java-capable staff).