There are good business reasons why Microsoft and others are now focused so strongly on BI. In Gartner's 2006 annual CIO survey, BI ranked as the #1 priority for CIOs. 

IDC forecasts the BI market to continue to grow at a 10% compound annual growth rate over the next five years, which is more than forecasted general IT spending. IDC says that about 75% of organizations expect their BI budgets to increase over the next 12 months. 

So I think it's not so much a question of whether BI will catch on as it is a question of what platforms and tools are going to be used to implement all these new BI systems (as well as revamping older ones), and will those systems in fact be successful. 

BI is really not a new concept. Previous incarnations of it had names (and acronyms of course) like Decision Support Systems (DSS) and Executive Information Systems (EIS).  

A few things that are different today, however, are:

1. BI is being extended to more users - the idea of "Pervasive BI". But to achieve this requires a whole new approach to delivering BI tools that do not take a rocket scientist to operate.

2. "The Internet Changes Everything", even BI. It is becoming critical for many BI projects that they be able to deliver fully-functional BI (as opposed to just a small subset of available functionality) over the web, ideally using a zero-footprint web browser client, to all users, even report designers and admins. This becomes even more important when there is a need to deliver BI to people outside the organization such as customers, suppliers, partners, etc., which is also becoming an increasingly important BI requirement.

3.  Users have come to expect high-quality graphics and visualizations the older DSS and EIS systems often did not have.

4. The platforms required to deliver world-class BI. In particular with Microsoft's entry into the BI space with SQL Server 2005 and Analysis Services, a whole new pricing/value option is on the table for the CIOs who are expressing such strong interest in BI. The smart ones are taking a close look at it.