Business Intelligence Software Vendors - Microsoft

Microsoft - BI Solutions

As a challenger with significant market presence and resources, Microsoft has historically adopted a follower's, rather than a leader's approach, for its BI platforms and applications products. In 2006, Microsoft executed a more coordinated and unified BI strategy across several of its business and product units (including the Office and SQL server product lines).

Today, the capabilities and integration of its current BI platform offerings have improved significantly, but are still not as mature as those of the market leaders. Micorsoft's BI products will appeal to the large community of Microsoft application developers, and the pricing, packaging and integration with its Office (including PerfomancePoint Server) and SQL Server products will be attractive to organizations that have standardized on the Microsoft information infrastructure. Many departmental and business unit end users who hear the Office integration marketing messages for BI will likely ask for the products and associated support from their IT departments.

However, organizations that have heterogeneous applications, information infrastructure and development environments will find the Microsoft BI-related marketing and announcements to be interesting but potentially distracting, since they may not easily integrate with their existing investments in infrastructure and applications.

We expect that Microsoft will continue to grow its BI investments, leveraging the integration and product strength of Office and SQL Server, become a stronger competitor and, ultimately, a leader in the marketplace by 2012 (see "Microsoft Strengthens Business Intelligence and Performance Management Offerings" and "Microsoft Plans to Close Business Intelligence Product Gap and Shift Competitive Position With ProClarity").

Source: http://mediaproducts.gartner.com/reprints/oracle/145507.html