Maestro to Direct Business Scorecards

A business intelligence (BI) server product, code-named Maestro and planned for fall 2005, is the latest chapter in Microsoft’s expansion into BI, the analysis of data from operational systems (e.g., enterprise resource planning systems) to aid business decision-making. Likely to be priced lower than competitive offerings, Maestro could help systems integrators and vertical ISVs on Microsoft’s platform expand further into BI. The sales effort will also leverage the marketing and installed base of SharePoint Portal Server and SQL Server. For software vendors with BI platforms, Maestro sharpens Microsoft’s competitive threat.

Grade Cards for Business Units

Maestro enables analysis of business data using “business scorecards” or “key performance indicators,” in which a business unit evaluates itself over time against a consistent set of business-specific metrics (e.g., average revenue per user, subscriber churn, employee retention rates). Microsoft itself uses this method extensively.

Users view and analyze Maestro scorecards in chart or tabular form through a browser, via SharePoint Portal Server and the Office Web Component browser plug-ins. (For an illustration of Maestro components, see “Maestro Architecture“.)