Microsoft's BI Strategy

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Microsoft's BI Roadshow: Products, Projects, and Promises
5/13/2009

By Stephen Swoyer

On the heels of a much-publicized shake-up of its business intelligence (BI) and performance management (PM) portfolio earlier this year, Microsoft Corp. last month took to the road to meet with journalists, bloggers, and other opinion makers.

The purpose, officials said, was chiefly to talk about Microsoft BI -- what the company has up its sleeves with Project Gemini (its column-store-on-a-desktop, end-user analytic workbench), Project Madison (its massively parallel processing -- MPP -- version of SQL Server 2008), and other aspects of Microsoft's BI universe. The company also took the opportunity to revisit the case for deconstructing the erstwhile PerformancePoint Server. Moreover, representatives solicited feedback about both the PerformancePoint reshuffling and Microsoft's BI strategy in general.

Intriguingly, officials said that Redmond is currently working on a solution to its missing metadata strategy. Although representatives steadfastly declined to commit to a timetable, they promised that help is, indeed, on the way.

PerformancePoint Recap

Three months ago, Microsoft disclosed its plan to effectively kill PerformancePoint Server by folding that product's constitutive components into the SharePoint Server and Microsoft Dynamics product lines. At the time, some in the industry interpreted Redmond's move as a withdrawal or retrenchment -- as evidence, in effect, of Microsoft's effectively exiting the budgeting and planning market (see http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?id=9289).

Two months later, Redmondites were still pushing back against this impression.

"We've had to have some tough conversations with customers that have certainly invested a lot from the planning perspective," confirms Guy Weismantel, director of marketing with Microsoft Business Intelligence.

At the same time, Weismantel contends, most customers seemed to take the announcement in stride, chiefly (he maintains) because the bulk of adopters are using PerformancePoint for its dashboarding and scorecarding capabilities; shops that tap PerformancePoint for its planning features are in a distinct minority, Weismantel asserts.

"At least three-quarters of our customers were using it primarily for the dashboarding and scorecarding functionality. That's not to diminish some very notable, large, Fortune 10 customers that were using it for planning." For the vast majority of customers, Weismantel contends, Microsoft's decision to apportion PerformancePoint between SharePoint and Dynamics should prove to be negligible disruption.

"Given that it was a version 1.0 product, it had been on the market for over a year, even in [these] large [i.e., Fortune 10] organizations, it was mostly a departmental deployment," he says.

Unlike dashboarding or scorecarding adopters (who will receive SharePoint licenses), planning customers won't receive free Dynamics licenses, Weismantel acknowledges. "No, they're not getting licenses for Dynamics. That's a separate licensing model. But the overwhelming majority of customers will get like-to-like licenses for SharePoint."

Most PerformancePoint customers are "excited" about this, according to Weismantel. "The response for the most part has been tremendous. Customers tell us, 'Great, I can take advantage of SharePoint -- are you saying I can accelerate this and get BI out to more people?'

"Likewise, [there's] the downstream effect of existing SharePoint customers saying 'Now I have dashboarding, scorecarding, and even some planning capabilities that I didn't have before,'" he continues. "This isn't to minimize the fact that for the planning customers, there was initial pain and confusion. But [for these customers] there's one more Service Pack release, [on] October 15th [2009] -- that will be the final release of the planning standalone application."

PerformancePoint user John Workman, a senior manager for performance management with buying cycle optimization specialist RedPrairie, largely corroborates Weismantel’s account. RedPrairie was both an early and an aggressive PerformancePoint adopter; two years ago it decided to develop its new revenue-generating application, RedPrairie Performance Management, on top of a then-green PerformancePoint Server 2007.

Workman sees Microsoft’s move as an unalloyed good for RedPrairie. He says the SharePoint licensing model is both cheaper and more flexible, although he concedes that customers that adopted PerformancePoint chiefly for its planning features probably don’t have a similarly salutary take.

“I understand why users of the PerformancePoint Planning application are concerned about this change, but as a monitoring and analytics user, I could not be more pleased,” he told Enterprise Strategies. “Prior to this move, we were deploying PerformancePoint into Windows SharePoint Services, mainly to keep the cost down. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server [MOSS] has a lower price point than PerformancePoint Server. By moving PerformancePoint into MOSS, we are able to provide more features and functionality for a lower cost. This lower cost is seen in both the server and client access ... licenses. In some cases, our clients already have MOSS licenses, which translates to no additional Microsoft license cost to use PerformancePoint.”

The cheaper SharePoint licensing model has been a boon to RedPrairie in other respects, Workman continues. “This change also allows us to broaden our focus. The cost of CAL licenses prior to this change was a bit prohibitive to give to every member of a large organization. We focused our RedPrairie Performance Management [RPM] product on key analysts and middle to upper management. In cases where everyone in the organization has a CAL license for MOSS, we can now look at expanding RPM to include the entire organization.”

That being said, Workman concedes that Microsoft’s announcement did trigger some initial confusion. “We have had to work through various scenarios where clients already have SharePoint and/or PerformancePoint and determine how the new license agreement applies to them,” he says. “In all cases, it has worked out to the advantage of our clients. This change has brought significant savings.”

Gemini on Track

Weismantel seems especially sanguine about Microsoft's upcoming Project Gemini deliverable, which is slated to ship next year.

For one thing, he points out, the industry seems to be trending -- breaking, even -- in Gemini's direction: BI pure-plays QlikTech Inc. and Lyzasoft Inc., along with open source software (OSS) vendor JasperSoft, now field back-to-the-desktop BI offerings (see http://www.tdwi.org/Publications/display.aspx?Id=9373). All such offerings share a single goal, according to Weismantel: to better service Excel honchos by enabling ("empowering," seems to be the word-de-rigeueur in this regard) them to service themselves.

"We are clearly going to reach new users with this. There's absolutely no doubt. We're not saying that the Excel novice who just turns on the computer is going to all of a sudden understand how to use a Pivot Table; there's no claim to that," he avers. "We're targeting the information worker who is responsible for projects and tasks and figuring out information on their own, who's familiar with Excel -- [they're] the ones who are really going to benefit from that."

There's another wrinkle here: enabled users translate into happy users -- which translates into a happier IT department. "The corollary to that is that we've heard a lot of feedback from the IT suite. Speaking at the CIO Summit that we had at the Microsoft campus a few weeks ago, [CIOs] are kind of supercharged up about [this self-service ideal] with all of the projects that they have backlogged right now," he explains. "The most mundane request that IT gets is [for] different views of information. When the user gets a report, it's pretty static, and they say 'I'd really like to see it this way -- can you add this column or this data table?' [Gemini] is designed to let [users] do this kind of stuff for themselves."

Gemini and similar back-to-the-desktop tools aren't targeting a new class of user, Weismantel indicates; instead, they aim to better service an existing subset of users: folks who aren't business analysts but who are frequent Excel users. "You go down the line on this continuum, from the analyst … to this person who just wants to ask questions of the data. [This is] … someone who wants to find trends within their customers or to pinpoint which products they should be focusing on. They're taking millions of rows and putting it into Excel [and identifying] it's these five customers and these five stores that we need to go after. So that's a sales person or a regional manager that's going to be able to go after that information," he says.

At the same time, Microsoft outlines a new use case for self-service -- employees at remote or satellite locations that are poorly served by corporate IT: "There's also been a lot of interest from satellite campuses and other people who work remotely who say, 'I'm not connected to IT; I don't even know a face [in IT].'"

Weismantel also tries to differentiate between Gemini -- which he says offers a manageable take on back-to-the-desktop BI -- and competitive offerings from Lyza and QlikView, which (he maintains) give short shrift to the issues of data management and data centralization. Gemini analyses can both be brought back into SQL Server -- such that they can be incorporated into an over-arching data management practice -- published via SharePoint, and catalogued using Microsoft's FAST enterprise search technology, he points out (see http://www.tdwi.org/News/display.aspx?id=9386).

"We certainly want that tie back in [to SQL Server and SharePoint]. That's crucial from our perspective because we don't want to just have [Gemini] be an end-user tool with slice and dice. The goal is, once we have something, [i.e.] the analysis, let's bring this back in, so we want there to be a mechanism to import that back into the corporate data so it can be searched on," Weismantel indicates. "The other part of this is search, so we're putting Enterprise Search on top of that. Then allowing the user to say, 'Here's a Gemini document, here's an analysis, here's a third-party report, here's the universe of information.'"

Hints about Metadata, but No Specifics

Microsoft has a trifurcated BI strategy, with its efforts divided between the Office, SharePoint, and SQL Server development teams. Unfortunately, the metadata that's generated by any one of these products isn't portable to (i.e., directly consumable by) its BI kith, such that users have to tap homegrown or third-party tools to reconcile or manage metadata in Microsoft BI environments (see http://esj.com/articles/2009/01/28/m...t-shakeup.aspx).

Weismantel says Microsoft is working on a solution to this problem -- although (in spite of repeated prodding) he declines to go into specifics.

"It's definitely on the radar screen. I can't get into too many details, as we're not even in the disclosure window around some of the things we're doing in master data management and other services. But there's a strong realization across Microsoft in that we want customers to know that it's something we're concerned about and that it's not bifurcated," he comments.

What exactly does Microsoft have in mind? Perhaps a unified metadata management component that lives in SQL Server and which is exposed (as a service) by SharePoint and Office? Weismantel declines to comment, promising that Redmond will have more to say in the second half of this year. He did disclose that Microsoft's still-percolating metadata management effort will encompass both its MDM and search assets.

"We're utilizing both [technologies]. We'll have more to say on this in the near future and get into the second half of the year," he promises.

Article appeared on TDWI web site.

Stephen Swoyer is a technology writer based in Athens, Ga.

stephen.swoyer@spinkle.net

[admin]

Microsoft looks to scale 'Kilimanjaro'

builderau, Ina Fried - 2009/05/12 10:34:01

Microsoft said that the next version of its SQL Server database, to be called SQL Server 2008 R2, will work with up to 256 logical processors as well as add a set of business intelligence capabilities previously known as Kilimanjaro.

The software maker had previously described Kilimanjaro as an add-on to SQL Server 2008, but not a new version. In an interview, though, Microsoft's Robert Wahbe said Kilimanjaro will indeed be a new version of the product, though it will share the same code base as SQL Server 2008.

"It is new capabilities but it is also a new release," Wahbe said. "We haven't been changing the core. That's the reason we named it R2."

The move to support 256 processors in SQL Server coincides with a similar move that Microsoft had already made on the Windows Server side, with Windows Server 2008 R2.

As for Windows Server 2008 R2 -- the server version of Windows 7 -- Microsoft said that it will be finalised later this year, coincident to Windows 7 on the desktop side. At this week's TechEd event in Los Angeles, Microsoft is also showing several new features of the product.

That's a far cry from several past releases in which Microsoft was cutting features to try to meet shipping deadlines, said Microsoft's Ward Ralston.

"It's generally a conversation of what ended up on the cutting-room floor," Ralston said. Instead, Microsoft is actually discussing a few additional capabilities that it will include in Windows Server 2008 R2. Microsoft had originally said that its Hyper-V virtualisation layer would support 32 logical processors; instead, Microsoft said it will support 64 chips.

Another addition is the ability to create clusters that mix different flavors of chips. In the past, clusters had to use the same revision of chip, while with Windows Server 2008 R2, clusters can be made up of machines using different Intel or different AMD chips, though they still can't combine the two brands.

"Now they can look to reuse some of that potentially couple-years-old hardware," Ralston said.

[admin]

Microsoft Delivers New Wave of Technologies to Help Businesses Thrive in Today's Economy

Company announces Windows 7 on track for holiday season; Windows Server 2008 R2 RC available today.

LOS ANGELES - May 11, 2009 - Microsoft Tech•Ed North America 2009 kicked off today with announcements of new technologies that enable IT professionals and developers to help their organizations save money and improve efficiencies during difficult economic times. As part of today's news, Microsoft Corp. announced that the company is anticipating that the next version of its client operating system, Windows 7, will be available to customers in time for the holiday shopping season. In addition, Windows Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate (RC) is available today with the final product releasing to market in the same timeframe as Windows 7.

"Microsoft is committed to ensuring that IT professionals and developers continue to have the platform and technologies to drive maximum value and business results. Getting the most out of IT investments is even more important in today's economy," said Bill Veghte, senior vice president of the Windows Business at Microsoft, who delivered a keynote speech at the event. During his speech, Veghte also talked about incredible partner support for Windows 7 and gave updated guidance on availability: "With early RC testing and extensive partner feedback we've received, Windows 7 is tracking well for holiday availability."

Greater Efficiencies and Cost Savings With Windows
Veghte cited the combined benefits of Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 as an ideal example of delivering business efficiencies and cost savings through technology. Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 include security, reliability and productivity enhancements, which, when used together, help deliver significant cost savings and productivity gains with features such as DirectAccess and BranchCache. As recently announced, Windows 7 RC is available for public download at http://www.windows.com/windows7.

Windows Server 2008 R2 RC includes several new capabilities, such as File Classifications Infrastructure (FCI), a built-in solution for file classification and management. In addition, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V now gives customers the ability to scale up to 64 logical processors, delivers improved Web experiences with Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5, and offers increased hardware utilization and server availability with built-in Live Migration for virtualization technologies. Windows Server 2008 R2 RC is available for immediate download at http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsServer2008R2.

Michael Cherry, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, acknowledged these benefits in a report titled "Windows 7 Integrates with Windows Server 2008 R2," which states, "Organizations that upgrade both clients and servers simultaneously could benefit from new features such as DirectAccess, which helps remote users connect to their organization's internal network, and BranchCache, which reduces network traffic between the main and branch offices." Cherry also reported that both products can help organizations reduce operational costs and support requirements.

"We are improving the efficiency of our branch offices and saving bandwidth by using BranchCache in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7," said Lukas Kucera, IT services manager of Lukoil CEEB, one of the largest integrated oil and gas companies in the world. "Some of our smaller facilities, such as the office in Slovakia and the storage terminal in Belgium, have just five to 10 users, so it's not efficient to deploy a file server on-site, but it consumes bandwidth to have them continually accessing files from the main servers. BranchCache is the perfect solution."

Additional Technology Enhancements, Best Practices Deliver More Business Value
Several other announcements were made during Veghte's keynote speech that illustrate how Microsoft's products and technologies help customers and partners reduce costs and drive efficiencies. The company provided guidance on how businesses can achieve enterprise-level scale, performance and capability without enterprise-level costs through Windows Server 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5. A recent Microsoft study - conducted using publicly available testing applications based upon industry best practices - shows customers can save up to 81 percent in total system costs by running applications on .NET 3.5 and Windows Server 2008 rather than on IBM WebSphere 7 on Power6/AIX. According to the study, customers who run their IBM WebSphere 7 applications on Windows Server and Intel Xeon 5400 processor-based HP BladeSystem servers can save up to 66 percent in total system costs when compared to running the same applications on IBM WebSphere 7 on a Power6/AIX platform. The full report can be reviewed at http://www.websphereloveswindows.com.

Tech•Ed attendees will also get the first opportunity to participate in the invitation-only Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Preview program, which will be available in July 2009. The Microsoft Office 2010 wave of products boosts productivity by giving users a familiar experience across the PC, phone and browser. For IT professionals, Office 2010 will offer more choice and flexibility in how they buy and manage their IT assets, helping them reduce costs. For developers, it will provide a platform for building innovative, connected Office-related applications with greater ease. More information is available at http://www.office2010themovie.com.

Finally, Microsoft announced that a Community Technology Preview of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (formerly SQL Server code-named "Kilimanjaro") will be available in the second half of 2009. SQL Server 2008 R2 will empower end users to make better decisions through self-service business intelligence, and help IT drive greater efficiency and reduce costs through new capabilities such as multi-server management and Master Data Services. In 2010, Microsoft will also introduce complex event processing for real-time insight into streaming information. This builds on the outstanding value of SQL Server 2008, which already provides some customers with as much as a 160 percent return on their investment.*

[admin]

Microsoft phased out 13 products in last 8 months, analyst says
Competition or a changing market can hasten the axe

Computerworld Eric Lai 02 June, 2009 07:48

Employees aren't the only victims of Microsoft Corp.'s declining profits, as the company has killed, frozen or spun out 13 software and Web services since last fall, according to a report released Monday.

Matt Rosoff, of the independent analyst firm, Directions on Microsoft, said more product cancellations are likely "as Microsoft continues to reduce costs."

Potential victims include products that overlap with others inside Microsoft but have less internal executive support, wrote Rosoff. Others include products such as Encarta, whose market has disappeared due to competition -- in Encarta's case, Wikipedia -- or products introduced to compete against firms no longer seen as threats to Microsoft, such as Office Accounting and Dynamics Entrepreneur, both killed now that Intuit Corp. has been replaced by Google Inc. on Microsoft's radar.

Products that are likely to survive cost-cutting purges can be tiny, such as the MSN dial-up Internet service, as long as they still turn a tidy profit. Or they can be money-bleeding products like XBox or the search engine Bing that are considered key to defending Microsoft's money makers such as Windows or Office. Or they may merely need the support of leaders such as Bill Gates, as MSN Direct and the .Net Micro framework did, wrote Rosoff.

Rosoff's list of products cancelled by Microsoft since October 2008 can be seen here.

Sometimes Microsoft outright kills a product. Take Encarta, which was a victim of Wikipedia and Microsoft's move away from packaged consumer software, Rosoff said

Other times, Microsoft folds struggling products into better-performing ones, such as Office Live, a collection of online services for small businesses that is being merged into Windows Live, or PerformancePoint Server, a pricey, short-lived business intelligence app that Rosoff said overlapped too much with SharePoint Server, into which it is being folded.

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Some products are made free due to a plethora of free rivals. Examples include anti-virus service OneCare, which will be replaced by a free product code-named Morro, and SharePoint Designer, a Web site designer which will also be given away free to accelerate the SharePoint ecosystem.

Others were niche products that were spun out, such as Microsoft's quiet spinoff of its RoundTable videoconferencing hardware to Polycom in April. That move was used to "eliminate" the product "quickly without alienating current customers," wrote Rosoff.

Another example was Microsoft's transfer last fall of its MSN Groups service to Multiply.com.

Sometimes products are old and gently nudged aside. Microsoft put Office Accounting into maintenance mode, meaning the company will support it through the end of its lifecycle but no longer plans to update it.