Microsoft Releases SQL Server Business Intelligence Platform

HostReview.com
Monday, February 21, 2005; 01:04 PM

As Microsoft Corp. (www.microsoft.com) prepares for the release of Microsoft® SQL Server (TM) 2005, the next version of its flagship data management and analysis software, business intelligence (BI) and performance management application vendors are developing solutions to help customers gain greater operational efficiency and a better understanding of their business data.

"The BI partner ecosystem is an extension of Microsoft's BI platform. These software industry partners build customer solutions that extend our ability to deliver business intelligence to every person at every level of an organization," said Bill Baker, general manager of SQL Server BI at Microsoft.

Together with Microsoft, independent software vendors (ISVs) -- including Cartesis, Geac, OutlookSoft Corp., Panorama Software Ltd. and ProClarity Corp. -- have delivered valuable solutions based on the SQL Server 2000 business intelligence platform, including SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services and SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services, to provide mutual customers with robust and scalable solutions.

These ISVs will continue to build on the success of Microsoft's BI platform by developing applications that utilize the advanced BI functionality and next-generation scalability, reliability and performance expected with SQL Server 2005.

"We have performed a thorough evaluation of the capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server 2005, in particular its scalability, availability and interoperability," said Michel Morel, chief software architect at Cartesis.

"Geac's support of SQL Server 2005 is a strategic decision by our company that promises to yield competitive benefits to us and compelling benefits to our customers," said Tim Wright, chief technology officer at Geac.

"ProClarity continues to develop our award-winning front-end analytic platform in line with the advancements of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 in order to fully leverage the best-in-class analytic functionality of the Microsoft platform," said Russ Whitney, vice president of research and development at ProClarity.