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    January 22

    Is your business People-Ready?

    On-line assessment tools now available for Business Productivity Intrastructure Optimization and Application Platform Infrastructure Optimization. Very helpful in putting in perspective needs that run across an organization.
    1:01 PM | Permalink | Blog it | Microsoft Office
    January 12

    Microsoft BI Conference, May 2007

    http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/jan07/01-12BIConference07PR.mspx

    Microsoft to Host First-Annual Business Intelligence Conference
    Steve Ballmer and Jeff Raikes highlight vision and road map for pervasive business intelligence.

    REDMOND, Wash. — Jan. 12, 2007 — Microsoft Corp. today announced plans for its first-annual Business Intelligence (BI) Conference. The event will take place May 9–11, 2007, in Seattle at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center.

    Microsoft expects approximately 2,000 conference attendees including CEOs, CFOs, IT professionals, partners and financial analysts. Microsoft established the BI Conference to communicate its vision of truly pervasive business intelligence and to discuss Microsoft’s role within the evolving BI market.

    The conference will feature technical tracks and sessions, customer and partner presentations, executive keynotes, presentations by industry analysts, customer awards presentation, and an exhibit hall showcasing Microsoft partners. Combined with evening receptions and other networking opportunities, attendees will learn about customer and partner BI implementations, best practices and successes.

    “Business intelligence is no longer a complicated tool set made available only to a small number of advanced users and analysts in an organization, but rather a set of capabilities for all information workers to enhance decision support and productivity across the enterprise,” said Jeff Raikes, Microsoft Business Division president. “By ensuring strong interoperability between our Microsoft® Office and SQL Server™ product lines and delivering business intelligence in the familiar applications that information workers use every day, Microsoft is poised to transform the industry and make business intelligence ubiquitous in the enterprise.”

    Conference Highlights

    Executive keynote addresses for the conference include Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, on Wednesday, Ted Kummert, corporate vice president, Data and Storage Platforms Division, on Thursday, and Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer, on Friday.

    Two technical tracks are planned for attendees that include a focus on both the BI platform and the BI front-end tools and performance management applications. These comprehensive tracks will cover the entire Microsoft BI product offering.

    A third track for business decision-makers and executives will focus on the business and end-user value of BI. A fourth and partner-specific track will focus on selling, demonstrating, marketing and in-depth technical training on Microsoft business intelligence. Finally, Microsoft will offer a customer track that will focus exclusively on customer case studies.

    A Spotlight on Customers

    As part of the conference, Microsoft will present top BI customers with its first-ever Microsoft Business Intelligence awards. The awards will recognize customers for their innovative and enterprise-scale BI solutions built on the Microsoft BI product offering. Customers and partners may submit their nomination via the submission form on the Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference 2007 Web site starting today. The deadline to submit entries is April 1, 2007.

    Microsoft is also currently accepting nominations for customer case study sessions at the conference. Those interested should visit the Call for Presentations section of the conference Web site to access the entry form and to submit a session proposal. Partners are welcome to submit entries on behalf of customers provided the nominated organization is able to co-present for the proposed case study session. Nominations are due by 11:59 p.m. PST on Monday, Feb. 5, 2007.

    More information about the conference, including the preliminary agenda and tracks, the BI awards program, exhibitors and sponsors, and accommodations, can be found at http://www.microsoftbiconference.com. Registration for the event will open in mid-February.

    More information about Microsoft’s complete and integrated BI solution can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/bi.

    Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

    1:04 PM | Read comments (2) | Permalink | Blog it | Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005
    January 08

    Business Scorecard Manager compatibility release now available


    There's a fix out that makes installing Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005 on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 easier to do.

    >> See Details Here <<  

    Business Scorecard Manager has been running with SharePoint Server 2007 for about two years now, ever since the Jeff Raikes announcement of the Microsoft BI applications strategy back in 2005. The key issue was that the installation configuration (which you could find on community blog sites like http://bimvp.com) was not "officially" supported by Microsoft.

    Why?

    Because SharePoint Server 2007 was in preview mode and had not been officially released. Now that SharePoint 2007 has been released the configuration process has been streamlined and neatly packaged and documented for your installation enjoyment.

    Many thanks to team for getting this done!

    9:05 PM | Read comments (1) | Permalink | Blog it | Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005
    January 03

    Download Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 Now! (the preview that is...)

    It’s now easier than ever to download Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007. Just go to http://connect.microsoft.com and select “Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007” from the drop down list (click on mini-image below).  

    I am writing this post to explicitly applaud the Microsoft Connect team that’s been working on this company wide application for sharing preview software with customers and partners. It MUCH EASIER TO USE than the previous generation of tools.

     Yes, we still ask you to fill out a survey so we can better understand your needs and where your feedback is coming from. When you get to finally play with the preview product it’s more than worth it J

    8:40 PM | Permalink | Blog it | Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007

    Business Intelligence in 2007

    Business Intelligence listed as one of top 10 software trends from PC World:
     
    <excerpt/>
     
    Business Intelligence (BI)
    Giving enterprises more insight into the factors that affect their business is becoming an increasing focus for enterprise software companies, which is why business intelligence itself is a growing market. With Microsoft gradually building out its business intelligence portfolio, pure plays like Business Objects SA and Cognos are getting nervous that their partnerships with the vendor are about to be cannibalized. Unfortunately for them, they are probably right, and by the end of 2007, the competitive landscape in BI will look different than it does today.
     
    </excerpt>
     
    <article/>
     
     
    2007: Top Software Trends--Vista, Virtualization
    Top trends in software include business solutions and productivity boosters.
    Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service
    Friday, December 29, 2006 01:00 AM PST
    Many of the software trends that percolated in the industry in 2006 will gather more steam in 2007, but several stand out as contenders to change the game for the market in the new year. Below are some of the key software trends to watch for in 2007.
     
    Windows Vista...Again
    Just when you thought it was over, the chatter surrounding Microsoft's long-delayed Windows client update has only just begun. 2007 will be a crucial year for the OS, which will finally make its mainstream debut to consumers at the end of January. Microsoft, its hardware and component partners and Wall Street will be keeping a keen eye on customer adoption of Vista to see if it really was worth the wait. 2007 also may be the year Apple Computer's Mac OS could gain more mass appeal among users that in the past might have bought a Windows PC, giving Vista its first real competition in ages. The competition can be attributed to two things. One, Apple now offers Intel chip-based PCs that are less expensive than previous Apple computers and thus a more viable option for the average PC user. Secondly, more consumers seem to be catching on to the fact that the Mac OS is -- and has always been -- more cutting-edge, attractive and just so much more fun to use than Windows.
     
    Software As A Service (SAAS)
    As Google and SAAS pioneer Salesforce.com continue to be financial successes, other companies begin sending out software that has traditionally been sold in packages to customers over the Web. Microsoft may soon be joining the fray, and in fact is steadily building out its Web-based service business under the direction of Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie. Indeed, many believe Vista will be the last packaged-software version of Windows as Microsoft eventually will begin offering new versions of the OS over the Web. Keep an eye on less packaged software and more SAAS offerings from other traditional players in 2007 as well, including Oracle and SAP AG.
     
    Virtualization
    Enterprises will continue to adopt this software, which enables more than one OS to run side-by-side on a single server. Nearly every major hardware and software vendor -- from IBM to Intel to Microsoft to virtualization giant VMWare -- has a vested interest in virtualization, and expect its use to become more pervasive in 2007. However, as that happens, virtualization -- along with related sever technology that contains multiple processors -- will change the game for how software and hardware is priced, setting the stage for new pricing models across the industry.
     
    Business Intelligence (BI)
    Giving enterprises more insight into the factors that affect their business is becoming an increasing focus for enterprise software companies, which is why business intelligence itself is a growing market. With Microsoft gradually building out its business intelligence portfolio, pure plays like Business Objects SA and Cognos are getting nervous that their partnerships with the vendor are about to be cannibalized. Unfortunately for them, they are probably right, and by the end of 2007, the competitive landscape in BI will look different than it does today.
     
    Office Productivity
    Windows Vista won't be the only major software package to hit the streets from Microsoft in 2007 -- a new and improved version of Office is expected to be on retail shelves at the end of January. But as Microsoft repositions its revamped worker productivity suite as a business intelligence and collaboration tool, keep an eye on online competitors from Google and others to see if they begin loosening Office's stranglehold on the market. The new partnership between Microsoft and Novell also will be a factor in this space, as Novell plans to support Microsoft's Office document format in its version of the open-source OpenOffice suite by the end of January. This will allow users of OpenOffice to better send and receive files from Microsoft Office users, making the key open-source alternative to Microsoft Office a more viable option for the mainstream user.
     
    Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs)
    SOAs have been making "technology to watch" lists for several years running, yet the IT architecture, which is based on the idea of linking independent applications as services in a network to create custom composite applications, is still in its earliest stages of adoption. Expect enterprise companies to continue getting their feet wet by adopting SOA projects to solve specific needs in their businesses, and expect companies such as IBM, SAP, BEA Systems and Microsoft to continue to trumpet their software products as the best ones to use as the underlying infrastructure for those projects.
     
    </article> 
     
    7:57 PM | Permalink | Blog it | Press and Analyst Coverage
    January 01

    Microsoft sweeps Reader's Choice Awards

    Microsoft's been rated the best Performance Management Suite by the reader's choice awards from TechWeb. Hurrah!
     

    Readers' Choice Awards
    By Doug Henschen and David Stodder
    January 01, 2007 (1:00 AM EST)
    URL: http://www.techweb.com/wire/196603898

    The results are in. Each year we invite our subscribers to select their preferred vendors in a range of technology categories. Hundreds of readers voted through a secure Web ballot that ensured one vote per subscriber in each of 37 categories. Many of the votes were very close, so in the spirit of competition, this year we list the runners-up as well as the winners.

    Once again, industry giants Microsoft and IBM racked up the most awards, topping the voting with nine and eight awards each, respectively--a testament to their broad portfolios. Oracle followed close behind, with the PeopleSoft and Siebel acquisitions helping to boost its award count to five (up from four last year). That left 16 awards, slightly fewer than half, in the hands of pure-play vendors.

    The Numbers

    68.1%
    Greatest Percentage of Votes in a Category
    Google
    (Search, Taxonomies and Categorization)

    9
    Most Category Wins (tie)
    IBM
    Microsoft

    87%
    Highest Customer Satisfaction Score (tie)
    SAS (Web/Clickstream Analytics)
    Salesforce.com (Customer Relationship Management)

    Business intelligence, for one, continues to be led by independent suppliers, with Business Objects taking top honors and Cognos in the runner-up spot. However, Microsoft's ProClarity was right up there, so we expect an even tighter race in next year's balloting.

    Several outcomes were no big surprise, such as Google's huge margin in the Search category, but others honestly left us scratching our heads. Microsoft as Best Performance Management Suite vendor? OK, the company did make big announcements about PerformancePoint in 2006, but the beta wasn't even released until a few weeks ago. But with its Office tools, SQL Server Reporting and Analysis Services, not to mention the Business Solutions apps, you could argue that Microsoft already had tools used for performance management.

    We suspect some readers were thinking like U.S. voters, treating technology like a two-party race (and perhaps there's the influence of the vast Microsoft and IBM channel communities). In an example from the Big Blue states, readers voted IBM as the Best Data Visualization Software vendor. IBM's Data Explorer is a legitimate visualization tool, but probably Best known in research circles. We would have expected this year's runner-up, Visual Insights, and last year's winner, Tableau, to have fought it out for the top spot. Instead, it looks like Data Explorer may have ridden Big Blue's long coattails to an unexpected victory.

    In a few cases, your votes ran counter to the Gartner Magic Quadrant and Forester Wave Report favorites, yet we understand the selections. Microsoft, for example, was voted Best BPM (business process management) vendor, yet the company isn't even listed in the same Gartner Quadrant with most other BPM suites. Microsoft's BizTalk has shown up in Quadrants for integration servers, application platforms and B2B gateways over the years, but there's no denying that it's helping more readers improve business processes than many of the pure-play BPM suites combined. Meanwhile, IBM's BPM suite is in the same Quadrant with the pure-play BPM vendors, but it's not yet in the all-important top-right corner. Nonetheless, IBM's suite was the runner-up in BPM, and that's not counting the many votes for FileNet, which was recently acquired by Big Blue.

    Our readers have been consistent in their voting, giving many suppliers wins for the second or third year in a row. SAS, for example, was voted Best Data Mining Toolset vendor for the third consecutive year, and Oracle reached the same milestone in the Best Customer Data Integration Software category. Fair Isaac and Adobe were honored for the second year in the Best Business Rules Engine and Best XML Authoring, Managing and Publishing Application categories, respectively.

    Readers are the Best judge of what works for them, but as we've uncovered in previous surveys, most voters haven't used or evaluated more than one product in the past two years. In other words, readers aren't necessarily up on emerging products and the latest-and-greatest features unless they happen to be in a periodic product evaluation cycle. Nonetheless, readers aren't about to vote for products that have been disappointing. In that sense, our Readers' Choice Awards are an indication of products that have delivered good value to the broadest spectrum of users.

    Continue to next page for complete list of winners.

    Best BI Suite Winner: Business Objects

    Runner-Up: Cognos

    Best Performance Management Suite Winner: Microsoft
    Runner-Up: Oracle

    Best Search Software Winner: Google
    Runner-Up: FAST

    Best Customer Analytics Winner: Microsoft
    Runner-Up: Oracle

    Best Web Analytics Winner: WebTrends
    Runner-Up: TeaLeaf Technology

    Best Data Mining or Statistical Analysis Winner: SAS
    Runner-Up: SPSS

    Best Text Mining Software Winner: IBM
    Runner-Up: SAS

    Best Data Visualization Software Winner: IBM
    Runner-Up: Visual Insights

    Best Customer Data Integration Software Winner: Oracle
    Runner-Up: IBM

    Best Data Quality and Profiling Software Winner: SAS DataFlux
    Runner-Up: Business Objects Firstlogic

    Best Metadata Management Software Winner: IBM
    Runner-Up: Hyperion Solutions

    Best ETL Software Winner: Microsoft
    Runner-Up: Informatica

    Best EII Software Winner: IBM
    Runner-Up: Composite Software

    Best Database Management System Winner: Oracle
    Runner-Up: Microsoft

    Best Data Warehouse/ BI Appliance Winner: NCR Teradata
    Runner-Up: IBM

    Best XML Database Winner: Microsoft
    Runner-Up: Oracle

    Best Business Process Management Suite Winner: Microsoft
    Runner-Up: IBM

    Best Business Rules Engine Winner: Fair Isaac
    Runner-Up: Pegasystems

    Best Business Activity Monitoring Software Winner: TIBCO
    Runner-Up: WebMethods

    Best Portal Platform Winner: IBM
    Runner-Up: BEA Systems Plumtree

    Best IT/Business Services Winner: IBM Global Services
    Runner-Up: Accenture

    Best ERP Software Winner: Oracle
    Runner-Up: SAP

    Best Data and Document Capture Software Winner: Adobe
    Runner-Up: IBM

    Best Enterprise Service Bus Winner: IBM
    Runner-Up: Oracle

    Best SOA Tools Winner: Microsoft
    Runner-Up: IBM

    Best Collaborative Content Management Software Winner: Microsoft
    Runner-Up: IBM

    Best CRM Suite Winner: Oracle
    Runner-Up: Microsoft

    Best Web Content Management Software Winner: Microsoft
    Runner-Up: Adobe (Macromedia)

    Best XML Content Publishing Software Winner: Adobe Systems
    Runner-Up: Tie--Altova and HyperVision

    Best Application Change Management Software Winner: BMC
    Runner-Up: CA

    Best Corporate Governance and Compliance Solutions Winner: Hyperion Solutions
    Runner-Up: IBM

    Best Enterprise Architecture/Process Modeling Software Winner: CA
    Runner-Up: Proforma

    Best IT Service Management Software Winner: Hewlett-Packard
    Runner-Up: IBM

    Best B2B Integration Software Winner: IBM
    Runner-Up: Microsoft

    Best Supply Chain Management System Winner: Oracle
    Runner-Up: SAP

    Best GIS Winner: Microsoft
    Runner-Up: ESRI

    Best Complex Event Processing Software Winner: TIBCO
    Runner-Up: Progress Software

    7:13 PM | Permalink | Blog it | Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007