Based solely on the title of the Microsoft Roundtable discussion I attended yesterday, I must say my expectations were not met at all.  Here’s the invite I originally received:

At first, I thought - hey, Microsoft is joining Ford and Mcdonald’s in their open embracing of the Gay & Lesbian agenda and actually hosting a lunch by, with or for Bi-sexual executives.  At the very least, I figured I’d learn something new, since I have virtually zero experience with bi-sexuals.  (this also means I have zero experience with virtual bi-sexuals).

Well, I did learn something new.  Evidently “BI” is short for “Business Intelligence.”

(crickets)

Tough Crowd, Tough Crowd.

Anyhoo, we learned Microsoft’s open embracement of business intelligence tools, and about portals, reporting, data presentment and all sorts of buzzwords they call their own.  Of course, BI is not foreign to me, but it’s not my main focus at my job.  I do pieces of this via pockets of technology, as do other departments, but I wouldn’t say we have a specific BI initiative at our company where we all rally behind one common yell of “monetize our data!”

The main take-away I had from this event was to learn about a product from Microsoft called PerformancePoint.

The guy ran through some demos of this product and WHOA HOLD THE PHONE CHUCK (note to self: call starkist).  I’ve never seen a tool so cool as this for drilling down through data and pivoting this, that and analyzing stuff.  I’m an avid user of PivotTables so I’m used to cutting through large amounts of data and getting anomalies out there into the open.  But this thing blew me away.

I’m definitely going to be playing with an eval version after we finish our migration from SharePoint 2003 to MOSS (SharePoint) 2007.   Since we have corporate data in many locations (five major campuses) via many sources (Oracle, SQL Server, mysql, Project Server, sharepoint, fileshares, email), utilizing something that can help consolidate it will definitely be of use.

Hmmm… if memory serves, that’s a product Microsoft acquired when they bought out some small MDM company whose name I forget? Probably. I can’t keep up. Performance Point had interesting features, but the Oracle solution seems to be stronger from what I’ve seen. They let you sweep data from across multiple shares, which I don’t think you can do with Microsoft’s offering. But, then again, that was months ago, so who knows where it’s at now. It sure would be nice if at least one of Microsoft’s products didn’t suck!

I am such a Mac whore.

Dave2, the guy who was doing the main presentation on PerformancePoint was a former employee of ProClarity, one of the companies Microsoft acquired for this product set. I do know that Abs is a BI expert, so I’m sure she will be chiming in with her experience with the big players - Oracle, Microsoft, SAP etc.

If by “sweep data from across multiple shares” you mean the ability to use diverse data sources, then yes, it does that. If I end up doing the evaluation, I’ll most likely do a review post on it.

Well, you know where to come if you have any BI needs. You know it’s what I do for a living as both a developer and an executive-type.

Don’t get too smitten with their products until you see WPF and Silverlight in action.

Business intelligence. Is that like “military intelligence”?