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Microsoft Corp. last week released its first commercial business-intelligence application for beta testing.
Code-named Maestro, the new tool is designed to let business users access scorecards to measure corporate performance. Due to ship late this fall, the server-based product will drive data from Microsoft BI platforms like SQL Server and Analysis Services to the desktop so Office users can access the information, said Ryan Buma, Microsoft's director of business development for Office business applications.
"This is where Office as a group is getting into the BI game at Microsoft," Buma said. "People are saying they need this valuable business data in the location where they are working and making decisions. Traditionally, that has been locked up in ERP systems."
The commercial product includes technology taken from the free BI Accelerator software that Microsoft began offering for download last year.
Mayur Raichura, managing director of information services at The Long & Foster Cos., said the Fairfax, Va.-based real estate company has used the free software to measure performance against defined goals.
"Microsoft took this academically complex tool and made it quite simple," he said.
Dan Vesset, an analyst at IDC, described Office -- and especially its Excel component -- as "the No. 1 tool for BI purposes." By "exposing some of the functionality through Excel, [Microsoft] has a captive audience that is looking for that type of interface," he said.
As a first-generation product, Maestro will need refinement before it can compete with scorecard software from suppliers such as Cognos Inc., Business Objects SA and Hyperion Solutions Corp., said Keith Gile, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. But the new offering will force other vendors to improve their integration with Office, he added.
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