Recently, Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 has generated notable press coverage, as well as great reviews from independent industry analysts. Read the latest reviews, hear what other people are saying, and stay up to date with the latest announcements from Microsoft on performance management and business intelligence. It is interesting to hear what the market has to say about the new kid on the block with Performance Point Server....

The OLAP Report: Preview of PerformancePoint Server 2007
Microsoft prepares its bold pursuit of the planning and consolidation market. "There is now no doubt that Microsoft is deadly serious about taking a very big bite out of the performance management market."
Read the report

Gartner Research: Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 Coming Soon to a Desktop Near You
Gartner evaluates Microsoft’s entry into the corporate performance management suites market with Office PerformancePoint Server 2007.
Read the report

There are also numerous Analyst reports that can be found on the Microsoft BI web site: https://www.microsoft.com/bi/about/news_analyst.aspx

IT and their Role in BI

I stumbled across an interesting Gartner article on B Eye Network this week, where it is discussing the role of IT in BI. The main discussion is around emerging technologies will over time marginalize IT's role in BI, something I believe will certainly happen.

The first paragraph, highlights some of the salient points that hit the BI market today. Traditional tools are being branded as too hard to use and aren't massively adopted into the market place.

“Evidence suggests that BI is used aggressively by just 15 to 20 percent of business users. For the BI sector to thrive, it needs to overcome the fact that most business users feel BI tools are hard to use,” said Kurt Schlegel, Research Director at Gartner. “Other technologies, such as personal productivity, collaboration and Internet search have been widely adopted by mainstream users in both their business and personal lives. BI has the same opportunity for massive adoption, but it must overcome its well-earned reputation of being difficult to use.” http://www.b-eye-network.co.uk/view-news/7122 

CaptureIn my opinion, its an interesting read for Microsoft partners looking to expand their solution base to BI. Whether this be extending your Microsoft Office SharePoint Server with Collaboration and BI or, Integrated Search for Reports using Enterprise Search. Some of the messages for Collaboration with BI and Integration of services for the user are prevalent in this article.