Microsoft has agreed to acquire business intelligence partner ProClarity.
Designed to reduce the time, complexity, and cost of developing, deploying, and maintaining analytical applications, the ProClarity Analytics Platform primarily consists of the ProClarity Analytical Application Development Platform and the ProClarity Analytic Suite. Together they are capable of providing organizations with a platform for the development of custom applications in combination with a series of pre-defined, vertically-oriented templates.
This acquisition will take Microsoft into large, data-complex organizations, and the domain of BI heavyweights such as Business Objects, Cognos, Oracle, and SAS. It will also provide increased competition for the likes of Information Builders, MicroStrategy, and others. Building upon Microsoft Analysis Services, the ProClarity platform does much of the ‘heavy lifting’ that enables BI-savvy organizations and Microsoft partners to develop bespoke BI solutions.
ProClarity, which was initially founded as Knosys, currently supports more than 2,000 customers globally, including Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, and Ericsson. The privately owned company has been serving Global 3000 companies since 1995, delivering solutions for leading retail, healthcare, financial services, and insurance organizations.
After starting out as a provider of ‘front-ends’ to Microsoft’s analytic server, ProClarity has gone on to develop an impressive portfolio of products and services. Furthermore, while the BI market has fared comparatively well over the past couple of difficult years, ProClarity has continued to grow and flourish at an extremely impressive rate.
Building upon the success of SQL Server 2000, Microsoft’s latest offering – SQL Server 2005 – provides organizations with an end-to-end BI platform that includes online analytical processing (OLAP); extract, transform, and load (ETL) tools; data warehousing; and enterprise reporting.
ProClarity was one of four Microsoft gold certified partners providing third-party solutions for the BI platform. One wonders, therefore, what will now happen to the remaining three – Panorama, OutlookSoft, and Extensity – in the wake of this acquisition. There is one thing that looks certain, that the acquisition of ProClarity will only bolster Microsoft’s growing position in the BI market, particularly in the mid-market, where the company is particularly well served by its BI partners and solution builders.
Source: OpinionWire by Butler Group (www.butlergroup.com)
