Forrester: Microsoft Office Finally Moves Front And Center Into Microsoft’s BI Strategy

Microsoft has been influencing the way companies approach OLAP, data mining, and enterprise reporting for several years with products such as MS SQL Server Analysis Services and MS SQL Server Reporting Services — all delivered through the SQL Server group. However, Microsoft has not been doing a good job integrating its Office products — particularly Excel — into the business intelligence (BI) picture in a meaningful way. That will change with the late 2006 introduction of 2007 Microsoft Office system capabilities for BI within Excel and SharePoint. This will compliment Microsoft’s October 2005 release of Office Business Scorecard Manager, based on both SQL Server and Office components, and the promise of more robust BI functionality and usability. This will put pressure on competing BI vendors to deliver BI results in a more consumable fashion.