1. What is the Microsoft Business Intelligence announcement?
Microsoft is consolidating Monitoring and Analyzing capabilities from Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 (PPS) into SharePoint Server Enterprise where these capabilities will now be called PerformancePoint Services. The planning component included in PPS SP3 will be released in the summer of 2009, after which time development on the planning component will cease and the PPS brand will no longer exist. As part of this change in BI strategy the Dynamics team will be assuming roadmap responsibility for FRx, Forecaster and Management Reporter.
Future State
FRx
Forecaster
Performance Point Server
Sharepoint Server Enterprise (Analysis and Monitoring only)
Planning (release date: summer ’09) No further development after release
Management Reporter
Enterprise Reporting *
*Death sentence has been lifted, sales and support to resume in February 2009, no announcements concerning future development of ER.
2. What is the future of Microsoft FRx?
FRx will continue to be an important asset for Dynamics BI. Microsoft will also continue to evaluate how we can improve customer satisfaction with this product and enhance and maintain FRx for new and existing customers. A detailed product roadmap will be communicated at or near the Convergence New Orleans timeframe that will offer more details on future releases and service packs. Microsoft FRx is a financial reporting product that is an important foundation of Microsoft Dynamics. Microsoft FRx 6.7 will remain in market and is currently sold as part of Microsoft Dynamics Business Ready Licensing and Module Based Licensing programs.
3. What is the future of Microsoft Forecaster?
We are committed to maintaining our Forecaster product line to ensure that we can accommodate existing and new vertical markets. We are already hard at work in developing a clear roadmap for Management Reporter, FRx and Forecaster which we hope to share at or near the Convergence New Orleans timeframe.
Microsoft Forecaster is a budgeting and planning product that is an important piece of Microsoft Dynamics. The current version, Microsoft Forecaster 7.0, was released in March, 2007. Microsoft Forecaster will remain in market and is currently sold as part of Microsoft Dynamics Business Ready Licensing and Module Based Licensing programs.
4. What is the future of Management Reporter?
Management Reporter is an important asset for Dynamics now and in the future, and we will continue to add features and functionality. We are already hard at work in developing a clear roadmap for Management Reporter, FRx and Forecaster which we hope to share at or near the Convergence New Orleans timeframe.
Management Reporter is a new financial report writer that is based on functional concepts of Microsoft FRx. Management Reporter helps corporations improve their business performance through an enhanced financial reporting process. Management Reporter allows business users are to create, generate and share financial reports easily, efficiently and accurately.
5. Does Management Reporter have all of the same functionality as Microsoft FRx?
Management Reporter represents the next generation of financial reporting functionality and currently does not have the same functionality. We are already hard at work in developing a clear roadmap for Management Reporter, FRx and Forecaster which we hope to share at or near the Convergence New Orleans timeframe.
UPDATE: 02/17/2009
...spotted an article in Network Computing that states in part:
Microsoft made a surprise announcement that presents good news and bad news for customers and partners who were developing on the PerformancePoint Server product. The good news is that the dashboarding, scorecarding and analytic capabilities of PerformancePoint are now being made available as free services to customers with an enterprise license of SharePoint Server. The bad news is that PerformancePoint and its planning functionality will no longer be offered as a separate product, though there will be a final “Service Pack3″ upgrade to the planning functionality released this summer. Translation? Microsoft’s BI team is backing away from deep financial and operational performance management, ceding those opportunities to the Microsoft Dynamics unit and stranding some customers and partners in the process.
Microsoft says it is bundling high-demand PerformancePoint functionality like dashboarding, scorecarding and advanced analytics with SharePoint to better fulfill its longstanding goal of spreading business intelligence to the broadest possible base of users.
“By putting this functionality into SharePoint, it makes it available to exponentially more users,” said Kristina Kerr, Lead Product Manager, Microsoft Business Intelligence, in an interview with Intelligent Enterprise. Share “As for the financial budgeting and planning piece, we found that it involves very different buying behaviors, different people and different deployment scenarios, so we’re very deliberately splitting those two areas.”
A final upgrade of PerformancePoint may buy planning-focused customers and partners some time, but nobody wants to make long-range plans around a product without a road map. Thus, one of two paths forward Microsoft points to exploits what Kerr describes as “broad planning capabilities” it can offer with the combination of SQL Server, SharePoint Server and Excel.
“For example, we have an Excel add-in that exposes the analytic capabilities of SQL Server Analysis Services,” Kerr explained. “Analysis Services offers a function called Forecast, which is really predictive analytics based on historical trends. [That's the kind of functionality] that’s suitable for scenarios that aren’t specific to the office of finance but that call for broad planning and forecasting capabilities.”
A second path forward for partners and customers interesting in planning is to work with the Microsoft Dynamics ERP and applications unit, which will continue to develop its Forecaster and FRX products for forecasting, budgeting and financial reporting.
