Title: How to use this template
1February 21, 2007. Call in at 1255 p.m. Eastern
Time
2Agenda
- Microsoft brings coherence to its BI front-end
platform with Office 2007. - Office 2007 helps data and people converge.
- The best BI benefits come with pairing Office
2007 with other Microsoft technologies. - Forrester recommendations.
3Agenda
- Microsoft brings coherence to its BI front-end
platform with Office 2007. - Office 2007 helps data and people converge.
- The best BI benefits come with pairing Office
2007 with other Microsoft technologies. - Forrester recommendations.
4Microsofts BI platform
Office 2007
Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook
SharePoint Server
PerformancePoint Server
Excel Services
Integration and BI infrastructure
SQL Server 2005
Reporting Services
Analysis Services
Integration Services
Data Sources
DB2
Oracle
Teradata
SAP
Other ODBC
SQL Server RDBMS
Other OLE DB
5Key areas of new BI support in Office 2007
- Excel desktop client
- Includes data mining add-ins
- Excel Services in SharePoint Server
- New PerformancePoint Server
- Integration of Reporting Services with SharePoint
- All management and administration now in
SharePoint
6Surprise! Microsoft has always been a key BI
player
- Excel has been most popular BI tool for a decade
- Excel part of our culture (Word, browsers, etc.)
- Spreadsheets are omnipresent in the workplace
- Accepted way of adding value to scattered bits of
information - Flexible analysis, varying degrees of complexity
- Merger of structured and unstructured data
- Power users understand functionality intimately
7But business and IT disagree over Excel use
- IT wants users to migrate from Excel to real BI
software. - Reliable data sources
- Data item selection
- Formula consistency
- Long-term scalability
- The business always resists.
- Excel already incorporated into workflow
- Dont want to lose ability for rapid response to
business events - Fear that new BI software will take away control
over how I do my job - Reaching common ground over Excel has been a
hallmark of successful BI initiatives.
8Excel Services will help ease ITs concerns
- Repository in SharePoint for spreadsheets and
data source connections - Storage
- Server-side calculation of spreadsheets
- Basic workflow check in/out, sharing, auditing,
access permissions - Web interface available to access any stored
spreadsheet - Exposes spreadsheets to dashboards/portals
- Gives users the opportunity to
- Maintain a single master version of important
spreadsheets - Establish approved data items and data sources
- Reduce overall spreadsheet proliferation
9Excel desktop client improves user experience
- Greater capacity 1 million rows by 16,000
columns - Tighter integration with Analysis Services
- Metadata layer for business-friendly data item
selection - New environment for KPI definition
- Displayed KPIs appear automatically as
conditional formulas - Formatting inherited from Analysis Services
- Data sources available directly through formulas
- Formulas can access SQL Server-based data mining
algorithms - BI features (including new chart types) exposed
through ribbons - Two data mining add-ins from Analysis Services
- Automated discovery for users with ordinary
technology expertise - Detailed use for data mining experts
10PerformancePoint focuses on planning
- Combines Business Scorecard Manager,
functionality from ProClarity acquisition, and
new technology for planning - Targets performance management use cases
- Monitoring
- Analytics
- Planning
- Templates for domain-knowledge verticals
- Self-contained data repository plus front-end
application (for planning, forecasting, and
budgeting) - Users develop models applied throughout the
PerformancePoint life cycle - Technology layer can be applied in general use
cases too - Dashboards surfaced through SharePoint,
information also through Excel and Outlook
11SharePoint is now integrated into Reporting
Services
- SharePoint is new center for management and
administration of Report Services - Creation of reports still in its own interface
- Reporting Services now inherits the security and
access control found in SharePoint - Introduced with SQL Server 2005 SP2
12Agenda
- Microsoft brings coherence to its BI front-end
platform with Office 2007. - Office 2007 helps data and people converge.
- The best BI benefits come with pairing Office
2007 with other Microsoft technologies. - Forrester recommendations.
13Data disassociated from the process hierarchy
CxO
VP marketing
VP finance
Customer service manager
Product manager
Controller
Accountant
F
inan
c
e domain
P
r
odu
c
t domain
Data
Cubes
ERP
CRM
Financial
w
a
r
ehouse
14Decision categories
Decision-making timeline
Decision- value timeline
Number ofdecision- makers
Number of decisions
Businessdomains
Stratum
15Microsoft wants to bring BI to the masses
More aggregated
More senior
Cubes
Datawarehouse
Budgeting
CRM
ERP
Data
People
16Microsoft wants to bring BI to the masses
More aggregated
More senior
Traditional BI vendors
Cubes
Datawarehouse
Budgeting
CRM
ERP
Data
People
17Microsoft wants to bring BI to the masses
More aggregated
More senior
Microsoft
Cubes
Datawarehouse
Budgeting
CRM
ERP
Data
People
18Agenda
- Microsoft brings coherence to its BI front-end
platform with Office 2007. - Office 2007 helps data and people converge.
- The best BI benefits come with pairing Office
2007 with other Microsoft technologies. - Forrester recommendations.
19Office 2007 BI is best with an all-Microsoft stack
- Allows for more user self-service, where users
dont have to code or understand database schemas - Excel Services gives users the chance to
rationalize their use of Excel if they want to
take the chance - Some presentation layer benefits are only
available with certain pieces of the Microsoft
stack - The business user-friendly item selection
available through Analysis Services isnt
available for Reporting Services. - Only SQL Servers data mining algorithms are
easily available in Excel. - Still not a full featured BI environment like
Business Objects or Cognos, for example - But not all organizations need every single bell
and whistle.
20Agenda
- Microsoft brings coherence to its BI front-end
platform with Office 2007. - Office 2007 helps data and people converge.
- The best BI benefits come with pairing Office
2007 with other Microsoft technologies. - Forrester recommendations.
21Recommendations
- Include Microsoft BI in POCs. For SQL Server
environments, plan for increasing investment in
Microsoft BI. With other database environments,
the pure plays will remain dominant for the time
being. - Dont underestimate the potential of Excel
Services. Introduce it first for the largest
spreadsheets requiring frequent updates of
structured information from enterprise data
sources. - Set expectations for the differences between
reports and cubes. Some of Excels improvements
for Analysis Services cubes arent available for
standard reports. Ensure that business users
understand how their experience will differ in
the two scenarios.
22Thank you
J. Paul Kirby pkirby_at_forrester.com www.forrester.c
om