FRx, Forecaster, PerformancePoint Timeline

Several products, including those from Microsoft subsidiary FRx Software, will merge with the forthcoming PerformancePoint Server performance and financial management application. In June 2007, Microsoft will dissolve its FRx Software division, which produces the FRx financial reporting application and the Forecaster budgeting application, and merge it with the Office Business Applications unit, the group responsible for the Business Scorecard Manager (BSM) 2005 performance management product. As Microsoft announced last year, BSM 2005 combined with data visualization software acquired in the 2006 purchase of ProClarity Software will emerge in 2007 as PerformancePoint Server 2007.

Microsoft will no longer develop stand-alone versions of FRx Software’s products but will begin incorporating elements of Forecaster in a subsequent PerformancePoint Server release (labeled “V2” in the illustration), which will probably ship in 2009 or 2010. The financial report design capabilities of FRx will appear in a second PerformancePoint-branded product called PerformancePoint Professional 2007 Management Reporter that will probably ship in the third quarter of 2007, about the same time as PerformancePoint Server 2007.