Microsoft Launches Business Intelligence Tool for the Masses

Published: September 26, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft last week announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, the company's new flagship business intelligence product. The delivery of PerformancePoint is significant for Microsoft, as the company intends it to herald a new era of reporting and analytics tools that are intuitive enough to be used by regular workers, not just programmers and highly trained analysts.

Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, which has been in development for four years and was named a year ago, enables users to manipulate data stored in multidimensional databases, using SQL Server Analysis Services, from Excel and browser-based interfaces. Its features are categorized into three main areas: planning, analysis, and monitoring.

On the planning side, the product ships with an array of predefined templates designed to help users formulate budgets and forecasts, and to perform GAAP-style financial reporting. The analysis side, which is largely based on technology Microsoft obtained with its acquisition of ProClarity in April 2006, enables users to apply the same templates to data stored in SQL Server databases. The monitoring side is largely based on an existing product, Business Scorecard Manager, which is used to provide key performance indicator (KPI) and dashboard functionality.

While other business intelligence software vendors have product sets with similar functionality, Microsoft is hoping that the integration work it's done to connect PerformancePoint to the rest of the Microsoft stack--including the SQL Server 2005 database, SQL Server Analysis Services (its multidimensional database-OLAP engine), Sharepoint services and Sharepoint server, the Windows Web server, Excel, and ASP.NET--gives it an advantage over other BI vendors.

The early returns on PerformancePoint Server 2007 are promising. Energizer, one of 10,000 organizations that participated in the Community Technology Preview program (yes, 10,000, which is larger than most BI vendors' installed bases), last year reported being "impressed" with the product's capability to integrate with the company's existing accounting products for budgeting and planning purposes. And a vice president with Capgemini, the international business process outsourcer, this week expressed high hopes the product will form the basis for a profitable business building dashboards and KPIs for customers.

Chris Caren, general manager of Microsoft's Office Business Applications unit, says the company has met its aims for the product. "Our goal as a leading BI provider is to deliver the most complete and integrated BI product line with unparalleled ease of use, and this matches what customers have been waiting for," he says.

The new BI product has also garnered a certain level of respect from AMR Research, the enterprise software analyst group, which is itself respected for its objective views. John Hagerty, a vice president with the group, said the launch of PerformancePoint Server 2007 made business intelligence and performance management (BI/PM) strategy "formidable." "Because of Microsoft's ubiquitous presence within enterprises of all sizes, its BI/PM products will certainly have long-term impact on how buyers perceive and purchase information-based products across all areas of their companies."

In the future, Microsoft plans to build many of PerformancePoint's reporting capabilities directly into its ERP products. It also is planning additional BI capabilities in SQL Server 2008, the next version of Microsoft's database, expected next year. However, users don't need new versions of Microsoft's Dynamics products or the database to take advantage of PerformancePoint Server. Users can also get buy with Office 2003, although Office 2007 offers better graphics capabilities.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 runs on Windows Server 2003 SP1 and requires several other members of the Windows Server stack to be installed, including SQL Server 2005 SP2 Enterprise Edition or later, Internet Information Services 6.0 with ASP.NET 2.0 and the .NET Framework 2.0., and either Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 or SharePoint Server 2007. Client PCs require Windows XP Pro SP2 and Office 2003 SP2. PerformancePoint Server 2007 is available now.

PerformancePoint Server 2007 costs $20,000 per server, and $195 per client access license. For more information, see www.microsoft.com/performancepoint.

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