Microsoft gears up for 'major' BI launch

Software behemoth looks to capitalise on its fast growing business intelligence reputation

Software giant Microsoft has hailed its recent ranking as one of the fastest-growing Business Intelligence (BI) vendors as a positive sign for the launch of its latest BI offerings.

According to an IDC report entitled Worldwide Business Intelligence Tools 2006 Vendor Shares, Microsoft achieved a growth rate of 28 per cent, the highest among the top 10 industry vendors. Overall the market grew by 11 per cent in 2006.

Dan Vesset, analyst at IDC, said: “Performance management can take on the form of various decision-support and reporting functions to improve revenue, profit and operational efficiency; decrease costs, uncover new opportunities or mitigate risk. Microsoft had another strong year in this market.”

Microsoft is due to launch its latest BI software Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 next month, and SQL Server 2008 is scheduled to ship in the second quarter of 2008.

Chris Caren, general manager of Office business applications at Microsoft, said: “We are focused on helping our customers achieve higher levels of business performance by allowing them to take advantage of the rich BI capabilities offered through Microsoft BI. We are excited to help companies integrate efficiently with one another to ensure all employees are held accountable for their actions across the entire business.”