Ask the CEO - Sonny Tobias

Mr. Tobias has been implementing, auditing, and re-deploying data warehouse and business intelligence solutions since he founded TobiasGroup in 1992.

What do you think about the MS purchase of ProClarity?
April 4, 2006
R. Palanca, Osborn International (via IM)

I like it, I'm not sure why they waited so long. They should have purchased ProClarity or Panorama a few years ago. ProClarity is probably a better fit because they (MS) can take pieces and parts of the product and incorporate them into the next release of Office. Other pieces they can incorporate into the next rev of SQL, maybe to back-end SCM. Plus this move makes bundling PC into the MBS and CRM products a lot easier. The only question I'd have is how this purchase affects MS's plans to bundle TemTec's Executive Viewer in Dynamics.

Unfortunately, the product offering from MS is made less clear with the addition of ProClarity:

- OWC already exists for small or highly customized application deployments,
- Data Analyzer for simple high-level analytic presentation,
- SCM for executive level presentation of KPI's and BS,
- and now ProClarity to fill the gap for a general purpose tool.

Hopefully, they can take all these technologies and create a highly scalable enterprise-ready product set that can compete with today's offerings from Panorama and BO. Maybe three (3) years?
I'm guessing three because if you think about it, RS has been out there for almost 2 years and we're still filling in holes with Panorama and other 3rd party tools.

How does this impact your favorite BI tool - Panorama?
April 4, 2006
J. Maskoff, TransAtlantic (via IM)

I'm guessing that there will be very little impact on the Panorama side. Their relationship with the MS SQL team has always been strong and there's no indication of that changing in the near future. Panorama has been and will continue to be at the forefront of BI technology in the MS space.

Don't forget, Panorama has a very strong BI platform (from analytics and reporting thru dashboard and scorecarding) - they just happen to use MS's OLAP backend as a best of breed engine. Panorama in an effort to extend MS's platform has actually leapfrogged and in some aspects outgrown MS's offering. For example, Panorama's Smart Reporting not only extends MS's UDM but actually negates Reporting Services for ad-hoc reporting. They've combined the "feel" of reporting with the power of analytics to give us a very usable tool that even the die-hard report consumers can embrace. Panorama's products allow us to connect the dots not only from strategic KPI's to operational execution but also amongst the user communities from the boardroom all the way to the shop floor.