The pending purchase of ProClarity will fill a longstanding gap in Microsoft's online analytic processing (OLAP) strategy, providing a client for SQL Server Analysis Services, the company's OLAP server technology. A Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, ProClarity has garnered about 2,000 customers for its ProClarity Analytics product, which includes a Web server application that allows users to work with Analysis Services data using a browser and a more full-featured thick client application. Although the purchase will round out Microsoft's OLAP strategy it will also threaten one of the remaining opportunities for partners to complement that strategy.

Complements SQL Server Analysis Services

Microsoft entered the OLAP market with the 1998 release of SQL Server 7.0 and has refined its OLAP features in subsequent SQL Server releases; the collection of development tools, programming interfaces, and run-time services for building OLAP applications is called SQL Server Analysis Services and was significantly overhauled as part of SQL Server 2005. According to The OLAP Report, an independent research publication devoted to the OLAP industry, Analysis Services has become the OLAP market's leading platform.

Despite this lead, Microsoft has offered limited client capabilities for working with Analysis Services data, complex databases (called cubes) that summarize raw business data, such as individual sales records, to facilitate business reporting and analysis. (For an overview of cubes and related concepts, see the illustration "What Is a Cube?".) A general-purpose OLAP client called Data Analyzer, released in 2001, has gained little traction, and although Excel is frequently used to work with Analysis Services data, it lacks many of the advanced navigation and visualization features of more full-featured OLAP clients. For example, Excel users typically work with two-dimensional, tabular views of cubes; in contrast, ProClarity's "Decomposition Trees" give users an intuitive, graphical representation of a cube's complex multilevel, multidimensional structure to aid navigation and analysis. Microsoft has historically looked to partners to provide such capabilities—along with ProClarity, Microsoft Gold Certified Partners Panorama and OutlookSoft also offer advanced tools for working with Analysis Services data.

The ProClarity acquisition, announced in Apr. 2006, threatens this traditional partner opportunity. However, it will undoubtedly solidify Microsoft's lead in the OLAP market. The deal also nets Microsoft other useful tools—although ProClarity's historical strength has been providing client capabilities for Analysis Services, ProClarity Analytics also supports other Microsoft business intelligence tools such as Reporting Services, SQL Server's managed reporting platform, and the Office Business Scorecard Manager (BSM), a Web server application that supports business performance analysis using key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, a ProClarity add-on lets workers use ProClarity Analytics' data visualization tools to analyze BSM KPIs and examine the data from which those KPIs are derived.

ProClarity is based in Boise, ID, and most of its approximately 140 employees will likely join Microsoft's Office Business Applications unit, which drove the deal and is also the group responsible for BSM. Microsoft did not disclose financial details of the acquisition, nor how it plans to brand, package, and deliver ProClarity's soon-to-be acquired technology. How the company plans to position ProClarity among other Microsoft products, such as Excel, is also unknown. For example, new features and usability improvements in Excel 2007 will make it a better client for Analysis Services. Microsoft will need to clearly articulate the products' relative merits to avoid confusing customers.

The press release announcing the planned acquisition of ProClarity is at www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/apr06/04-03ProClarityPR.mspx.

The ProClarity Web site is www.proclarity.com.

The OLAP Report is at www.olapreport.com.

Excel 2007 improvements for working with Analysis Services data are described in "New OLAP Features for Excel".