Microsoft's future in BI market unclear

Microsoft last week broadened its plans to intelligently gather and analyze business data by linking its Office applications and back-end servers while emphasizing future developments. But observers are split on just how significant that future might be.

In the next two weeks, Microsoft plans to release not only the long-awaited SQL Server 2005, with its business-intelligence enhancements, but also Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager 2005, which was announced last week.

In addition, the company said that Office 12 components due to ship by the end of 2006, specifically Excel and SharePoint, would figure prominently in the business-intelligence push.

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Microsoft last week broadened its plans to intelligently gather and analyze business data by linking its Office applications and back-end servers while emphasizing future developments. But observers are split on just how significant that future might be.

In the next two weeks, Microsoft plans to release not only the long-awaited SQL Server 2005, with its business-intelligence enhancements, but also Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager 2005, which was announced last week.

In addition, the company said that Office 12 components due to ship by the end of 2006, specifically Excel and SharePoint, would figure prominently in the business-intelligence push.

Microsoft is trying to create a bundle of business-intelligence software that lets users gather, store and analyze data for tasks such as decision support, query and reporting, online analytical processing, statistical analysis, forecasting and data mining.

Observers say Microsoft is trying to establish the business-intelligence interface as part of its multiple integration projects around Office, its dominance on the corporate desktop and its wish to ignite Office upgrades.

"Microsoft has been acting on the realization that Office is a ubiquitous tool in the enterprise," says Joshua Greenbaum, a principal with Enterprise Applications Consulting.

That assessment is supported by moves to make Office the front end for real-time communication and Microsoft Dynamics business applications, and by business-intelligence partner deals, such as one linking SAP's back-end processes with Office.

"This is a way for them to leverage what they are good at, which is the interface and the Office environment, and still be able to say they are a player in the enterprise software market," Greenbaum says.

But Microsoft and market leaders such as Business Objects and Cognos are missing a fundamental issue, he adds.

"The world does not need more [business-intelligence] tools, it needs [business-intelligence] solutions. Companies need to be told where to go, what to look for and what to do with the results."

A study by Gartner earlier this year concluded that the biggest barrier to business-intelligence deployment is a lack of user skills and knowledge of best practices.

Others agree with that assessment, including Jeff Raikes, the president of Microsoft's Business Division, who said that Microsoft sees an opportunity because "users see [business intelligence] as inconvenient, expensive and hard to use."

The company has been molding SQL Server into a business-intelligence platform since the mid-1990s, experts say, adding services for integration, analysis and reporting.

"With Microsoft, [business intelligence] begins with SQL Server," says Chris Alliegro, an analyst at independent research firm Directions on Microsoft. "But one of the challenges that Microsoft has faced in the past is that it provides [business-intelligence] infrastructure, but it does not provide any sort of end-user product." Microsoft hopes to change that starting with the Business Scorecard Manager and Office 12.