Blog: Craig Schiff

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Vendor News From All Over: Microsoft, OutlookSoft, Applix

Microsoft announced its intention to acquire ProClarity. Makes sense. The two companies products are tightly intertwined. ProClarity puts a prettier, simpler (non-MDX) face on Microsoft's BI offerings. What does this signal about Microsoft's intentions in the BI/BPM space? It appears to me that they are looking to reach deeper into the enterprise, beyond the core IT power users of their tools. This requires, an easier, more intuitive interface, which ProClarity provides. Enterprise BI today is often utilized as part of a business performance management (BPM) initiative. This move takes Microsoft another step down the same BPM path that several BI vendors are now following. Which may explain the next piece of news: OutlookSoft has announced support for Oracle Database 10g. Since its inception OutlookSoft has only offered BPM solutions on the Microsoft platform. This is a major departure for them, possibly precipitated by Microsoft's move. As a software vendor, if your platform provider starts offering competing applications, life can get pretty rough. It's true that Oracle already has BPM applications, but neither Oracle nor Microsoft can offer the platform choice that OutlookSoft will be offering its clients. The last bit of news from the past week involves operational performance management, one of the fastest growing segments of BPM. Applix has announced a partnership with Varicent. Applix has recently focused its powerful TM1 engine on operational performance management. Varicent dives deep into one aspect of operational BPM, Sales Performance Management. The combination leverages Applix's high performance slice and dice capabilities and Varicent's deep domain expertise. All of these announcements indicate that more and better choices are coming for adopters of BPM.

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