1. What is the good news about SQL Server 2008 R2 ?
Addition of Datacenter and Parallel Data Warehouse Editions, StreamInsight, PowerPivot Self-Service Business Intelligence, In-memory analysis, Support for Windows Server Hyper-V, Azure Cloud operating system, Master Data Services, Report Builder, Microsoft can better position itself to competitors like IBM, Oracle and Teradata.
2. So what is the bad news ?
SQL Server is the center piece of Microsoft products like SharePoint, Exchange (kind of), Cloud Computing, Asp.net and all. So Microsoft is keep adding more features and bulking up the products. Every version comes with more new editions and additions.
Other vendors like IBM, Oracle, Teradata, SAP, MicroStrategy are providing studio (complete suite of tools) to takle Business Intelligence, Dashboarding, Scorecarding and Enterprise Performance Management platforms.
Even if you own Datacenter version or Enterprise version of SQL Server, you still need to have Microsoft Office, SharePoint, Windows Server, Visual Studio, Business Intelligence Development Studio, PerformancePoint Server (discontinued) to handle Presentation, Workflow, Data entry forms, Data Modeling, Multi-Dimensional cubes (OLAP) and more.
3. How is the competitors are stacked up ?
IBM recent purchase of Cognos for BI, TM1 for Planning, SPSS for Predictive Anlaysis, Cognos Express for midsize, Datastage, DB2, AIX platforms makes it better one-stop solution provider for enterprise.
Recent announcements on Cloud computing strategy makes IBM as a BI / EPM Solution provider rather than just one part of the solution provider.
Oracle products like Essbase, Hyperion Planning, Integration with RDBMS, Master Data Management, Dashboarding, EPM Workspace, OBIEE and wide range products makes Oracle well fit in this arena.
SAP is trying to convince its business community with Business Objects acquisitions and partnering with Terdata and SAS Institute. BusinessObjects Edge Business Intelligence (why do you name so big ?), SAP BusinessObjects Edge Planning and Consolidation , SAP BusinessObjects Edge Strategy Management are well suited for SAP business community, yet to be seen how well it works together with mixed environment or non SAP shops.
Microstra tegy just released free starter edition for BI and dashboarding beginners, and making more in-roads.
Teradata is ahead in cloud computing BI strategy by providing tools to work in Amazon Elastic cloud (EC2)and VMWare Virualized environments.
4. Top 10 things Microsoft can do to get more marketshare ?
- Package the tools (suite or studio) needed to tackle BI, EPM, Master Data Management
- Build Examples, Models and better educate the community and get feedback
- Put a roadmap for Cloud computing using Microsoft Tools BI & Performance management
- Simplify the licensing options and cost
- Provide Suite of tools for Small & Mid-size, while continue targeting Enterprise business
- Clear distinction between different Editions
- Zero-footprint installation for BI / EPM modeling and reporting
- Integrate Silverlight into the tools
- Build everything around Excel
- Simplify the strategy
5. Some of the Challenges and Risk ?
- How do you take the features from SharePoint (Workflow, Dashboarding), InfoPath (Data Entry Forms), Report Builder and put these features in to Business Intelligence Studio ?
- How to provide all these features without having thick downloadable client ?
- Studio which targets the small-midsize business while providing flexibility to enterprise developers ?
- What is Cloud Computing strategy in BI, Performance Management, Master Data Management ?
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