BI for the masses

Business intelligence users might be forgiven for wondering about Microsoft’s acquisition of business intelligence specialist Great Plains Software. Would Microsoft take over the industry, or would it be just another player among many? For its part, the company has developed a strategy to appeal to two different kinds of business intelligence (BI) users.

Simon Piff, regional solutions manager at Microsoft, said Microsoft had a dual approach to BI: one around its Great Plains division, which would be aimed at the small to medium business market, and the other focused on custom enterprise-level applications built on top of SQL Server.

”Our philosophy is ‘BI for the masses,’ he said. “The need for good quality data extends throughout any organisation, as far down as possible. It is the people facing a customer need, more than the people setting strategy, who try to build a platform to extend that data through the organisation.”

One of the advantages to being Microsoft, of course, is the familiarity users have with their software, and this is also the case with the near-ubiquitous Excel spreadsheet application. While many BI projects are started to escape the frustrations of spreadsheet-based management, Microsoft is keen to capitalise on its strengths in ease of use.

”We enable a broad range of clients that can plug in, but Excel does a great job for a lot of people,” he said, adding that Analysis Services supports clients from Cognos, Proclarity, Brio and MIS AG. “Coming from a platform perspective, we let the customer choose the tools to meet their requirements. If they choose Excel, then so be it.”

As with most of Microsoft’s strategies, there is a significant role for third-party services organisations to take the technology to the customers to meet their needs. Mr Piff said the blend of technologies needed by a user would depend on their business, which would require further work done by the third parties.

”We are building a platform which we clearly expect to be extended by our partners,” he said. “One of the big challenges is that every business is pretty unique in the kinds of data they have and how they use them. We have the platform, but we don’t know how to know what pressure points to invest in. Microsoft is perhaps not in the best position to make that judgement hence we work with partners to try to understand them.”

The merit of SQL Server as a platform for BI applications is based on Analysis Services, which Mr Piff said was a component of the SQL Server package, and was also sold as a standalone product. Analysis Services was integrated with other SQL Server features such the OLAP engine, data mining, DTS, and notification services able to trigger alarm messages to mobile devices.

”At the end of the day, it is clearly an economic decision. If the company feels they have no opportunity to make a productivity gain, that’s the choice they make. BI is now hitting a price point where smaller companies are able to take advantage of it. If they are already running Office on their desktop, they have already got a front end tool they can leverage. That’s the starting point for many small to medium businesses,” he said.