Blog: Shawn Rogers

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The Microsoft Approach to Business Intelligence

I caught up with Alex Payne of Microsoft to get more details on the announcment they made at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit in the UK. As I mentioned in my previous post the briefing was standing room only and centered around Performance Point Server.

The thousand foot view is pretty simple. Performance Point allows Microsoft to service both ends of the market. They can provide the power user with the features they need and on the same platform can provide pervasive business intelligence services across the enterprise.

I think the most notable aspect of the announcement is how simple the licensing agreement is. Usually they read like stereo instructions, that isn't the case here.

• Performance Point Server - 20K per server, no per processor or seat pricing
  
• Client Access License - start at $195 per seat and can even go lower if you qualify for Microsoft Volume Pricing. (so most of you probably can get them for less)
  
• External Connectors- 30k optional and allows you to set up an extranet for customers and partners.
  

No matter how you do the math this model is a far cry from the $250,000 server and $1,500 seat licenses that has been the norm for a long time.

The software gives users broad access to 3 important business intelligence sets of functionality, Monitoring, Analysing, and Planning (more on the features here). The ability to customize these sets of features for a flat price will really make it easy for companies to adopt the program.

I'm sure that not everyone in the space is pleased that Microsoft has lowered the pricing hurdle to this level but isn't it the missing link of truly pervasive business intelligence? This is a very disruptive and powerful play by Microsoft into the space.

So what are your thoughts? Is this what is needed to fuel the growth of business intelligence? I look forward to hearing from you on this one.

Nicely done Microsoft.

Technorati Tags: Business Intelligence, Performance Point, Microsoft, Alex Payne, Pervasive Business Intelligence, Gartner

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