Microsoft steps up BI push with PerformancePoint launch

Microsoft is set to accelerate its drive into the business intelligence (BI) software market this autumn after confirming that 16 October will be the UK launch date for its updated performance management software suite Office PerformancePoint Server 2007.

The suite features a new planning module, codenamed Biz#, which will allow users to create budgets, plans and scorecards against which they can measure corporate performance.

Tony Crowhurst, product marketing manager for PerformancePoint, said that the new module would boast tight integration with the suite's existing Business Scorecard Monitoring functionality and its analytics capabilities, which were added following the acquisition of BI specialist ProClarity last year.

The integration means that the suite will now help automate the entire corporate performance management (CPM) lifecycle, according to Steve Morse, BI sales manager at Microsoft. "Setting, monitoring and analysing strategies and budgets is a common process and having this full lifecycle functionality brings down the time it takes to develop these processes from months to weeks or days, " he argued.

PerformancePoint will have to compete in a crowded performance management software market alongside offerings from many of the established BI vendors. However, Crowhurst insisted that tight integration with Office and SQL Server will drive interest in the product and make it easy for firms to distribute performance management functionality across the business.

Crowhurst added that the suite has been priced to encourage widespread adoption, with prices starting from £13,420 for the server and £130 per client access licence.

Alys Woodward of analyst IDC said that the launch could prove "very disruptive" for the established performance management market. " [PerformancePoint Server 2007] will take performance management software into the midmarket where it has never really been before," she said. "It might face more opposition among larger enterprises because Microsoft doesn’t have the expert finance department-focused sales force of other performance management vendors, but, that said, it has the partner network to access those accounts – potentially this is very disruptive technology."

Separately, Microsoft also confirmed it was on track to launch the next version SQL Server, featuring enhanced BI and data warehousing functionality, during the second quarter of next year. Crowhurst added that a Service Pack for PerformancePoint Server 2007 would be launched next year to ensure it supports SQL 2008.