Responding to the corporate cry for help in corralling the data that bounces among business systems, Microsoft Corp. this week announced the official release of its business intelligence application, which, the company said, can be tailored to the needs of each decision-maker in the organization. The Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 adds a dashboard, analytics, and performance planning to the company's existing BI platform.

PerformancePoint is seen as the final piece in a layered BI portfolio that the company has been building over the years. To date, Microsoft's BI strategy has centered on SQL Server, SharePoint Server, Office Business Scorecard Manager, and Microsoft Office Excel. This week's announcement adds a performance management application with integrated budgeting, forecasting, financial consolidation, and management reporting. All of the application's functions are performed within the familiar interface of an Excel spreadsheet or Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

"The ability to do this in a familiar and easy-to-use approach, where training is not required, is something that customers told us they absolutely need to make it viable and usable," said Mike Duran, Microsoft's senior solution specialist for the supply chain industry unit, in an interview with Managing Automation.

Microsoft is not a new player in the BI industry. AMR Research notes that Microsoft's first foray into the BI market was in 2003, when it rolled out Microsoft Reporting Services. In 2005, the company delivered its scorecard capability, as well as functions within Microsoft SQL Server 2005, including data management and multi-dimensional analysis. But perhaps the most significant step in its BI journey came last year when it acquired ProClarity, a purveyor of analysis and visualization software. With that acquisition, Microsoft has been able to compete with the likes of BI specialists Cognos and Business Objects, and even Oracle — which recently built out its BI functionality through its Hyperion acquisition.

The Microsoft difference, company officials say — and industry experts agree — is the integration with Office.

According to an AMR Research report, "Microsoft considers much of its BI/performance management strategy as an expansion of its Office application franchise ... Even if a user is accessing BI/PM data through an Office add-in provided by another vendor, they might not be able to recognize anything other than Microsoft as the BI/PM interface." As a result, Microsoft's BI brand recognition should rise, while others risk being pushed further into the infrastructure of the business, the report states.

PerformancePoint manages the entire process of planning, monitoring, and analytics. It can also be tailored to each end-user based on a pre-built templates for specific roles.

The integration of planning, monitoring, and analytics is also a differentiator. "You don't have to extract data and put it into a scorecard system or a separate area for analytics," Alex Payne, Microsoft's director of product management for business intelligence, told Managing Automation.

Through PerformancePoint, any user in the company can use the BI application. Users can build a production plan for profitability or a revenue forecast, and monitor how the company is doing, officials said. "If they find an anomaly, they can do an analysis and uncover what is happening," Payne said, adding that users can update the plan or change the forecast accordingly.

Microsoft unveiled its plans for PerformancePoint earlier this year, promising to deliver it by the end of the summer — and just a few days shy of autumn, the company is delivering on time. In addition, since the product's first preview, more than 10,000 organizations have participated in the Community Technology Preview program.