Microsoft’s PerformancePoint Coming into Focus

Microsoft Corp.’s PerformancePoint Server 2007 offering might still be incubating, but it’s not as if the software giant ever shied away from trumpeting soon-and-inevitably-to-be-hatched-products in the past.

And with last week’s release of a new PerformancePoint Community Technology Preview (CTP), Microsoft has at least a plausible reason to crow.

PerformancePoint, Redmond’s long-awaited performance management (PM) entry, could do for PM what SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) did for OLAP and reporting, respectively: take it mainstream. Last week, Microsoft officials outlined PerformancePoint licensing and pricing information, discussed the fate of the former ProClarity Corp.’s assets (a number of which have been incorporated into PerformancePoint), talked up the mainstreaming of PM in general, and seemed confident that Microsoft will deliver its inaugural PM suite on time—in the second half of 2007.

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Why Microsoft PerformancePoint matters

On December 5, Microsoft announced the public availability of a Community Technology Preview (CTP) test build of PerformancePoint Server 2007. If you’re not a KPI (key-performance-indicator) jockey, you probably haven’t paid much attention to Microsoft’s PerformancePoint. But here’s why it matters, in the grander Microsoft scheme of things. Almost all of Microsoft’s recent talk about Office has centered around the desktop application suite as … well, a desktop application suite.

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Business intelligence at a whole new level promised by Microsoft and i2

Sophisticated advanced planning and scheduling software developer i2 is to develop supply chain analytics and business decision support systems with Microsoft. The pair are to develop i2’s supply chain management suites on the Microsoft.Net Framework, integrating with Microsoft Office and the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Server 2003, SQL Server and Office SharePoint Server. Dubbed i2 Intelligence, the analytics software is to harness Microsoft Office as its main user interface. In fact, it will also work with Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, Microsoft’s business intelligence (BI) technology and i2’s new-generation supply chain management solutions.

Read the full story (Manufacturing Computer Solutions)