Microsoft BI 2.0

Writing by Jorgen on Wednesday, 3 of October , 2007 at 8:15 pm

Last week Microsoft came in the news with two seemingly separate events. The Dutch government has decided to make more use of open source software. There are several reasons for this: lower costs, more innovative employees and so on. But the most dominant driver for this was limiting the position of power of Microsoft.

Also the European community won their fight with Microsoft, forcing them to give other companies more information on the ins and outs of Ms Windows. Giving these so called API’s to other companies allows them to better integrate their products with Ms Windows. In the extreme this can be considered as a first step towards making Microsoft more open(source).

The support for open source software among some IT professionals is powerful. For example there is a high correlation between pony tailed network administrators and (Linux) penguin T-shirts.

As many of you know Microsoft has been entering the BI arena with products like performance point server. Many argue that Ms Excel already is the dominant BI tool anyway. It has been common practice among IT professionals to bash Microsoft and for BI professionals to bad-talk Excel. But on the other side, the business people (especially those grayish people from finance) cannot live without their spreadsheets. So if IT doesn’t want it but the Business needs it – are we at a deadlock?

If this first step of forcing Microsoft to open up its secrets to other players continues - perhaps in the future IT and Business can work together in making Microsoft BI (2.0) a truly collaborative business intelligence experience.

Bookkeeper and BI professional – both wearing a “I LOVE BILL” T-shirt – working together on improving Microsoft BI. Shall we live to see this?

Category: BI Thoughts, BI Tools, Business Intelligence datawarehousing, Business Intelligence software, Business Intelligence tools, Microsoft

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