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Welcome to the 4th issue of the Microsoft Business Intelligence Newsletter! This month’s issue showcases a blog on Forbes.com featuring Guy Weismantel, Microsoft Director called “Predictive Performance Management: My Trip to Dubai”. We are also including new resources, and several product updates of Microsoft Office Performance Point Server 2007. We hope that you find the newsletter to be a valuable resource and we encourage you to share it with your colleagues!
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Microsoft BI now on Forbes.com!
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As part of our efforts to reach BDM’s and establish Microsoft as a thought leader in the business applications space, we’re sponsoring a blog series with Forbes.com called the Business Visionaries Program featuring thought leaders in the industry coupled with our take on BI/performance management issues of the day. Review the blog here.
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Product News
Introducing Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 Service Pack 1!
Built on the proven business intelligence platform of Microsoft SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is an integrated performance management application that helps make it easy for you to:
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Monitor the performance of your organization.
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Analyze the results.
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All of which contributes to aligning everyone in your organization to company strategy.
Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 brings the performance management process into an easy-to-manage centralized environment, while giving you the flexibility to work with familiar products like Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
With this new Service Pack, enhancements have been made to the monitoring and analyzing functionality found in PerformancePoint Server to help customers improve decision making. Usability, stability and performance enhancements are key focus areas for PerformancePoint Server SP1. Customers will be able to take advantage of new workbook options for improved performance of queries. Later in June, a new Data Import Wizard will be released to help customers develop their own data providers for enhanced planning.
Customers using strategy maps and KPI’s for monitoring and analytics will see improvements to scorecard and filter usability. Scorecards with negative numbers have improved formatting that makes them easier to read and dashboards with filters are now faster to render and provide the ability to link reports directly to KPI’s. There are also improvements to Tabular filters and Time Intelligence Post Formula filters.
In addition, SP1 adds support for Windows Server 2008. Support for SQL Server 2008 will be available later this year with the release of SQL Server 2008.
For more information about what’s available in SP1, please check the online help:
Office Online:
New articles are added monthly, so check back often.
BI Comparison
IBM, SAP, Oracle and Microsoft account for about half of the $7 B Business Intelligence market. All four are pitching enterprise-wide BI platforms, each with its own twist. Review this article to better understand the technologies and strategies of all four vendors. Review this article
New e-Learning Upgrade offer for SQL Server Customers
Customers can enter the discount code SQL2008LNCH and save 40% off a 9-course e-Learning Collection on Writing Queries Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Transact-SQL today and receive a free upgrade to the SQL Server 2008 version of this collection when SQL Server 2008 is released. Review the offer and the course
Customer Success
Tire Manufacturer Drives Deeper Business Insight with Microsoft BI
GPX International Tire is a multinational firm which has undergone numerous mergers and acquisitions in recent years, resulting in multiple and disparate IT systems. The organization was seeking a more simple and timely way to access business data and improve its decision-making process. GPX deployed a Microsoft Business Intelligence solution to deliver faster analysis and integrated visibility to international sales, finance and logistics.
Customer Ready Case Study
Brasfield and Gorrie Working Smarter with New Microsoft Office System 2007!
Virtually everyone at Brasfield and Gorrie is working smarter thanks to the new Office System 2007 including SharePoint, and Excel Services to automate budgeting and class registration - "the executive dashboard based on Excel Services is making life a lot easier for the several dozen Brasfield & Gorrie managers and others who are responsible for developing the company’s yearly budget. This dashboard, a secure portal that was developed in just three weeks, provides a check-in/check-out system for transparently updating and integrating data from divisional spreadsheets and merging that data into a master spreadsheet"
Customer Ready Case Study
Contact Kathy Hickman or Mitch Gatchalian for details.
OSISoft’s PI System utilizes SharePoint, Excel Services, and Performance Point server to monitor aggregated energy consumption, water conversation, and carbon emissions
OSIsoft provides companies with timely information about exactly where and how energy is being consumed and emissions generated. This information is made available to those who can act on it in a timely way, and see the result. Companies use this data to identify work practices and faults that result in resource loss, address those inefficiencies and, thus, reduce greenhouse gas production while lowering their resource consumption. Click here for story details
Click here to view video
Partners
BPIO University Online Course: Business Intelligence: NEW!
Watch this 30 minute video and learn how to help your clients improve business performance by delivering better decision making throughout the organization with the confidence that your insight into corporate data is sound, informed, and complete. To view the video: 1) Log onto www.msbpio.com; 2) Click on BPIO University Online; 3) Click on a region under “Launch BPIO Sales Courses”; 4) Select BPIO University Online Course: Business Intelligence Contact Joanne Pinter for more details.
Microsoft Partnercast: Positioning & Selling BI
Microsoft’s Business Intelligence platform offers an extensive breadth and depth of solutions. In this partnercast, we’ll share best practices on how partners can position and successfully sell BI. We’ll discuss some common customer questions, take a look at competition, as well as leave you with a list of resources. MP3WMAContact Joanne Pinter for more details.
Microsoft Partnercast: Microsoft BI Partner Opportunity
Business Intelligence offers significant opportunities for our partners – to both grow your business and deliver customer value. In this partnercast, we’ll discuss why now is the right time, why BI is the right focus area and Microsoft the right company to partner with. MP3WMAContact Joanne Pinter for more details.
PerformancePoint Server 2007 On-Line Training
Unable to attend the Distance Learning Training Sessions? Learn the fundamentals of PerformancePoint Server 2007 through self-directed learning courses, which have been designed to give you a quick start on building your performance management solution. Click here to get started. Partners have commented that the quality of this online recorded, modular training was “among the best training they’ve done with Microsoft”.
Contact Joanne Pinter for more details.
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 Implementation Web Series! Now Available On-Demand!
This three-part webcast series will introduce partners to the Microsoft Consulting Services’ Performance management Center of Excellence (PM-CoE). The PM-CoE is responsible for documenting implementation methodology and best practices for Performance Point Server 2007. The first two presentations will take partners through the suggested phases of a generic PerformancePoint Server M&A implementation; what to look out for – and the "do’s" and the "don'ts". In addition, a webcast detailing Microsoft’s internal implementation of PerformancePoint Server 2007 is also included.
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint Server 2007: M&A Implementation Methodologies and Best Practices
Events
Microsoft CEO Summit 2008 Virtual Pressroom
During the CEO summit, an annual tradition that Bill Gates started in 1997 to bring together the worlds business leaders, a considerable amount of time was spent discussing the power and value of Business Intelligence. Jeff Teper demonstrated the power of an integrated platform, supporting the various roles within an organization, and the power that this integrated platform can enable organizations today. To check out the demo, head on over to http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/ceosummit/default.mspx and scroll forward to around the 19:50 minute mark. You’ll see the capabilities of Microsoft Business Intelligence can enable you to achieve, and how tying this together with social computing, enterprise search and unified communications allows you to take immediate action– closing the loop from insight to action. This is the power of what we call the Business Productivity framework – taking your organization to the next level and thinking beyond just what today’s Business Intelligence solutions offer. The whole environment is enabled through SharePoint’s capabilities and surfacing information from SQL Server, PerformancePoint Server, and the recent acquired FAST Search technology.
Microsoft BI Conference 2008: Customer Awards Program
We will be recognizing our customers for their outstanding solutions built on the Microsoft Business Intelligence product family and the benefits their company has realized as a result at the 2nd Annual Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference. We are now accepting customer award entries on the Conference website. Why submit an application? Finalists will receive a free pass to the Conference along with other winning rewards! Nominations are due Friday, August 1, 2008. For more information about the Awards Program and to submit a nomination, visit the Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference website.
Resources
Watch a video about Business Intelligence for your role!
Learn more about how Microsoft BI can help you in IT, Finance, Operations, and Sales by watching this video
Contact Wendy Jurgemeyer for more details.
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