White paper
Published: February 2008
Applies To: Microsoft SQL Server 2005
Summary: This white paper describes the advantages of the Microsoft Business
Intelligence offering versus the Business Objects XI offering. This white paper assumes that the reader is a business decision-maker who has basic knowledge of business intelligence (BI) functions including data integration, data management and data warehousing, analysis, reporting, and performance management.

The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.
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 2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Microsoft, Excel, PerformancePoint, SharePoint, SQL Server, Visual SourceSafe, Visual Studio, Windows,
Windows Mobile, and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Introduction ......................................................................................................1
Executive Summary ...........................................................................................1
About Business Objects .....................................................................................3
About Microsoft Business Intelligence ..............................................................3
Data Warehousing and Integration ...................................................................4
Key Microsoft Advantages in Data Warehousing and Integration............................ 4
Lower Deployment Cost .............................................................................. 5
Developer Tools ......................................................................................... 5
Data Workflow Engine ................................................................................. 5
Integration with the Database Engine and Operating System ........................... 6
A Strong Partner and Third-Party Development Community ............................. 6
Analysis and Reporting .....................................................................................6
Key Microsoft Advantages in Analysis and Reporting ............................................ 7
Cost Effective Procurement and Implementation ............................................ 8
Flexible and Decentralized Data Access ......................................................... 8
Connected, Familiar Environments ............................................................... 8
Few Information Bottlenecks ....................................................................... 8
Superior System Performance ...................................................................... 8
Simpler Overall System Architecture ............................................................. 9
Fully Integrated Enterprise Information Platform ............................................ 9
Desktop Leadership .................................................................................... 9
Mobile Device Leadership .......................................................................... 10
Performance Management .............................................................................. 10
Key Microsoft Advantages in Performance Management ..................................... 10
Integrated Business Intelligence Platform .................................................... 10
Reduced Complexity ................................................................................. 11
Open, Model-driven Approach .................................................................... 11
Lower Total Cost of Ownership ................................................................... 11
More Transparent Support for Audit and Compliance .................................... 11
Enhanced Partnership with IT .................................................................... 12
Deployment Simplicity Combined with Model Robustness .............................. 12
Organizational, Financial, and Process Flexibility .......................................... 12
Conclusion....................................................................................................... 12

Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 1
This white paper introduces the Microsoft ® Business Intelligence end-to-end offering and compares it to Business Objects Enterprise XI applications. It provides insight into the major reasons why organizations should consider Microsoft Business Intelligence as a powerful, extensible, and scalable alternative to Business Objects. These two products are compared across the following business intelligence (BI) disciplines:
 Data Warehousing and Integration – The management of the data supply chain from source to business users, management of data quality, optimization of storage of data from across the enterprise, and features that reduce cost and decrease time-to-market for enterprise data integration and warehousing solutions.
 Analysis and Reporting – A user-friendly view of the often complex source data that is defined in business terms and enables end users to easily build ad hoc reports and perform analysis, visualize and explore business data, perform predictive analysis, and access Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
 Performance Management – Purpose-built applications for organizational planning, monitoring, and analysis of business results within a closed-loop information-rich performance management process.
Because of the increasing demand for business intelligence worldwide, companies must:
 Perform data integration and management across the organization
 Perform computations for analysis and glean insight from data to transform it into meaningful, actionable business information
 Deliver information to decision makers
 Enable information-rich business processes
Along with Microsoft, vendors like Business Objects (now part of SAP) deliver BI products that can satisfy the needs of a business decision-maker. Microsoft Business
Intelligence offers a complete suite of products that supports all aspects of decision making. The suite provides tight integration with the powerful, proven, and scalable
Microsoft SQL Server ™ 2005 platform, Microsoft Office SharePoint ® Server 2007, and
Microsoft Office PerformancePoint ™ Server 2007. This integration provides complete business intelligence capabilities that improve organizations by providing business insights to all employees, which leads to better, faster, more relevant decisions.
Microsoft delivers the following types of BI:
 Personal BI. Built by individual users for their use and used only by them.
 Team BI. Built by someone on the team for the team’s use.
 Organizational BI. Built and maintained by IT staff for use across the company.
The innovative features in SQL Server 2005 help businesses to understand and analyze large volumes of rapidly changing data. The 2007 Microsoft Office system, including
Office SharePoint Server 2007, Office PerformancePoint Server 2007, and the
2007 Microsoft Office suites, takes business intelligence to another level and enables decision makers to predict and harness the power of change so that they can create competitive advantage, achieve corporate objectives, and make better decisions faster.
Now tighter integration between SQL Server 2005 and the 2007 Microsoft Office system empowers users to be more productive by answering their own questions in a security-
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 2 enhanced, familiar, and easier-to-use environment. This enables IT departments to focus their resources on higher-value BI projects and enables everyone else to focus on doing their jobs and spend less time on getting the information they need to do their jobs.
Microsoft Business Intelligence includes performance management capabilities that take advantage of the data infrastructure provided by SQL Server. By using Office
PerformancePoint Server 2007, executives can drive business performance management across the organization, better execute on strategy, and increase shareholder value. IT departments can rationalize their BI infrastructure, reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), increase compliance and adoption, and use their existing investment in Microsoft technology.
Microsoft and Business Objects both provide compelling solutions for integrating data from heterogeneous data sources and for building and deploying data warehouses.
However, customers who use SQL Server 2005 as their data platform can achieve cost efficiency, high developer productivity, and high standard integration with their database ecosystem by using SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio.
This single development environment across all of the SQL Server 2005 BI technologies is delivered in the familiar Microsoft Visual Studio ® development system. SQL
Server 2005 also delivers top-quality data integration performance and an outstanding data workflow engine at a low cost compared to a third party extraction, transformation, and load (ETL) platform such as Business Objects. In comparison,
Business Objects does not provide a database management platform and requires
SQL Server or another database management platform. Finally, the Microsoft Business
Intelligence offering provides a strong partner and third-party development community.
Feature Microsoft BI Business Objects
Integration of heterogeneous data sources
Support for compliance and audit
Powerful data quality transformations
Integrated data management platform
High developer/designer productivity
Data workflow engine
Deep partner and third-party development community
Familiar, easy-to-use skills
Lower TCO
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 3
There are always challenges to implementing the complex technology ecosystem that business intelligence requires, but with the Microsoft Business Intelligence offering customers find that all the parts work together seamlessly. With the same IT resources, organizations can quickly and cost-efficiently deploy the services they need—and not deploy or pay for those they do not need. Developers can use their skills across the business intelligence value chain without retraining, and quickly provide the solutions that business users are asking for. Users can continue to work in familiar environments, in ways in which they are already comfortable, and with fewer pain points related to data integration and availability, performance and scalability, and the lack of flexibility that they have experienced with other business intelligence providers.
Since its founding, the Business Objects (BOBJ) organization has focused on business intelligence deployments within large organizations. For many years, BOBJ focused on its “universe” semantic layer, desktop reporting, and enterprise publishing solutions.
Over the past few years the company made several acquisitions and expanded its technology. In 2005 the company released its business intelligence offering, called
Business Objects XI (BOBJXI), which is composed of the following products:
 Business Objects Enterprise, including InfoView and Central Management Console
 Data Integrator, Data Quality, and Data Federator


Crystal Reports XI / Crystal Reports Server
Desktop and Web Intelligence
 Voyager (and OLAP Intelligence, which Business Objects has announced will be phased out)
 Enterprise Performance Management, including Planning
There are also a handful of accelerators, toolkits, and solutions that have been built on or for the BOBJXI platform; these are discussed in later in this white paper.
At the first Microsoft Business Intelligence conference, in May 2007, the president of the
Business Division at Microsoft, Jeff Raikes, outlined the Microsoft vision for business intelligence. This vision is driven by the idea that people, not technology, drive business outcomes because people make decisions every day that develop customer and partner relationships, improve operations, and drive innovation. For more information about the
Microsoft vision for business intelligence, see Microsoft President Jeff Raikes Declares,
“It’s a New Day for Business Intelligence” on the Microsoft PressPass site.
The Microsoft Business Intelligence offering builds on, extends, and connects Microsoft tools to enable users at all levels of the enterprise to realize the benefits of business intelligence. Although the individual applications that make up the Microsoft Business
Intelligence offering can be installed separately, Microsoft designed these applications to provide interoperability and integration with each other as well as with Microsoft server and desktop operating systems. The products that form the core of the Microsoft
Business Intelligence offering include the following:
 SQL Server 2005
 SQL Server 2005 Database Engine
 SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 4
 SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
 SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
 Office SharePoint Server 2007
 The 2007 Microsoft Office system
 Office PerformancePoint Server 2007
This section provides an overview and comparison of Microsoft Business Intelligence and
BOBJXI data management and integration, data warehouses, ETL operations, and metadata capabilities. The following table compares the feature listing of the two products.
Summary of Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects Data
Management and Integration Products
Data Integration
Business Objects
 Data Integrator XI
 Composer
Microsoft Business Intelligence
 SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
Metadata and Data Quality Management
Business Objects
 Data Integrator XI
 Data Quality XI
 Metadata Manager
Microsoft Business Intelligence


SQL Server 2005 Database Engine
SQL Server 2005 Integration Services
 SQL Server 2005 SSIS Metadata Sample
Toolkit
Developer Tools and Productivity
Business Objects
 Data Integrator Designer and
Composer
 RapidMarts and Integration Kits
Microsoft Business Intelligence
 Business Intelligence Development Studio
SQL Server 2005 provides customers with flexible data management and integration functions for overall management of data warehouse assets. Customers should consider
SQL Server 2005 as their data management and integration platform for ETL for the following reasons:
 Low deployment cost
 Enterprise scalability
 Comprehensive developer tools
 Superior data workflow engines
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI
 Large partner and third-party development community
 Cost-effective integration with BOBJ reporting deployments that are installed on a
SQL Server database platform
There is no additional licensing cost for a customer who installs SQL Server Integration
Services (SSIS) on a computer that is already licensed to run SQL Server 2005. In comparison, Business Objects Data Integrator XI requires a separate database management platform to manage its repositories, which must be licensed, purchased, and deployed separately from the other enterprise reporting and planning solutions in
Business Objects XI.
Because Business Objects data integration tools are separate from the database platform, a company that adopts Business Objects must acquire additional tools, additional skill sets, additional training, dedicated ETL design, and development resources. Conversely, an ETL platform that is embedded in a database platform that shares a unified set of development and management tools inherently results in significant human-resource and process cost savings. With the compelling set of capabilities that SSIS offers, customers get even more value for a much lower overall cost.
In the BOBJ environment, in addition to Data Integrator, there is a separate and additional set of tools for managing metadata and performing data profiling. This approach requires further software purchases, increased training costs, and more specialization of IT resources. However, SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence
Development Studio (BIDS) is based on the familiar Microsoft Visual Studio integrated development environment. BIDS is the same development environment used for all
SQL Server BI applications, and provides a flexible environment for the development of
ETL solutions. BIDs is also easier to navigate than BOBJ. BIDS enables developers to work across the BI value chain without retraining or retooling, and integrates with any team development tool that works with Visual Studio such as Microsoft Visual
SourceSafe ® , ClearCase, or Visual Studio Team System. Instead of paying for additional project management tools, a customer can use existing investments in the
Visual Studio platform for managing projects and for performing and collaborating on architecture and design work.
Customers benefit from the completely redesigned ETL engine in SQL Server 2005 that provides a wide range of data-flow tasks and supports complex data management and warehousing capabilities, which reduce the need for writing SQL code. Additionally, designers can transfer data between a wide range of sources by using flexible and powerful connectivity management. SSIS supports the loading of multidimensional targets directly, by using specifically designed data-flow tasks for Analysis Services databases in addition to traditional relational data warehouse schemas.
5
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 6
Job scheduling, logging, and auditing support are built into SQL Server and integrated with the database system, which enables organizations to use IT resources better because they can work cross-functionally. Integration of SQL Server and Microsoft
Windows ® operating systems enables users to capture physical metadata for managing
IT assets across the infrastructure in fewer steps by using separate processes. Last, but certainly not least, security is easy to administer with SQL Server 2005 running on the
Windows Server ® platform.
Microsoft sustains a strong community of developers, partners, and third-party providers for issues that are not handled by built-in components. The broad community of third-party and partner support that is available worldwide for nearly any connectivity, workflow, or transformation requirement is unmatched by the Business
Objects community.
SQL Server 2005, when used as the data integration platform, provides all ETL-related benefits, even in an environment where other database platforms are used for data warehousing. It costs less than a third-party ETL platform such as BOBJ Data Integrator
XI.
This section provides an overview of Microsoft Business Intelligence and BOBJXI analysis and reporting capabilities. Microsoft and Business Objects compete across four categories of analysis and insight-generating functions:
 Analytical data processing that can define data in business terms, extract data, and perform analytical computations
 Aggregations and computations of summarized data
 Predictive analysis that can enable all users to analyze data sets, compare new data to historical facts and behaviors, identify classifications and relationships between business entities and attributes, and deliver accurate predictive insights to all of the systems and users who make business decisions
 Information delivery including publishing and distributing reports, creating dashboards, and empowering users to work with information
Both Business Objects and Microsoft provide solutions for creating, publishing, and distributing reports across the enterprise; creating dashboards; and empowering users to work with information however, wherever, and whenever they want.
Summary of Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects Analysis and
Reporting Products
Analytical Data Processing
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 7
Business Objects
 Universe Designer
 Data Federator
Microsoft Business Intelligence
 SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
Predictive Analysis
Business Objects
 Web Intelligence
 Desktop Intelligence
 Voyager
 Performance Management applications
 Crystal Xcelsius
Microsoft Business Intelligence
 SQL Server 2005 Data Mining
Scorecards, KPIs, and Performance Management
Business Objects
 Enterprise Performance Management applications


Dashboard Manager
Predictive Analysis / Set Analysis
Microsoft Business Intelligence
 SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
 Office PerformancePoint Server 2007
 Office Excel 2007
Reporting and Information Delivery
Business Objects
 Web / Desktop / OLAP Intelligence
 Crystal Reports
 Enterprise Performance Management applications
 Live Office
Integrate BOBJ with Microsoft Office.
 Enterprise Content Search, Intelligent
Question, Encyclopedia
 Mobile Interactive Viewing
Microsoft Business Intelligence
 SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services
 Microsoft Office PerformancePoint
Server 2007
 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
2007
 Microsoft Office 2007
 Windows Mobile ®
 SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition
 Microsoft Office Mobile
Microsoft offers the following advantages in the area of analysis and reporting:
 Cost-effective procurement and implementation
 Flexible and decentralized data access
 Connected, familiar environments
 Fewer information bottlenecks
 Superior system performance
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 8
 Simpler overall system architecture
 Fully integrated enterprise information platform
 Desktop leadership
 Mobile device leadership
Organizations with a Windows SharePoint Services or Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal
Server implementation can easily and cost effectively use these investments for business intelligence with the components they have without additional software investment. It is not necessary to buy an entire suite of applications, many of which the organization might not use. Because Reporting Services is a component of SQL
Server 2005, for smaller deployments organizations can implement a reporting solution on an existing server that is licensed for the SQL Server Database Engine and eliminate the need for additional hardware and software. Even in a scale-out deployment,
Reporting Services is less expensive for basic reporting functionality than Business
Objects when an additional dedicated reporting infrastructure is added.
The Microsoft environment provides flexible data access because the reporting layer is much closer to the source data than in Business Objects. Additionally, the data sources for reports can be abstracted by using report models, enabling non-technical users to build reports from data sources without relying on IT personnel.
Users can access Analysis Services data through the familiar Microsoft Office Excel ® rich application environment. Additionally, Microsoft Office PerformancePoint
Server 2007 analytics seamlessly integrate trusted data, a familiar design, and a familiar analytical environment with a simple and familiar user interface. Everyone in the organization can work with the data in the ways in which they are most comfortable, with the flexibility to generate their own insights.
Reporting Services reports can be consumed in a Web browser through the intuitive
Report Manager interface or can be integrated into Microsoft Office SharePoint Server sites and line-of-business applications. Additionally, users can export reports to a wide range of familiar formats including Office Excel, HTML, Portable Document Format
(PDF), and image formats. Reports can also be delivered directly to users through file shares or by e-mail.
Dashboards in the Office PerformancePoint Server environment are always driven from live, trusted data sources in SQL Server Analysis Services databases, Office Excel, or relational databases. There is no incremental work needed to create additional databases to calculate or store KPIs and performance targets.
SQL Server Reporting Services requires a much smaller footprint on the infrastructure and causes fewer bottlenecks than does BOBJ so it can deliver a significant performance
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 9 advantage over the BOBJ environment. Because there are fewer bottlenecks to manage and tighter integration of data sources, metric repository, and display, large organizations experience much better performance and can support more timely and actionable information in their executive dashboards.
SQL Server Analysis Services is the market-leading OLAP engine. It includes features that optimize the performance of your analysis solution. For more information about the performance benefits of SQL Server Analysis Services, see www.olapreport.com
.
The Microsoft system architecture simplifies the task of installing, scaling up, and administering the IT infrastructure that enables executive, enterprise-scale dashboards, and performance management applications. Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 can be installed in an up-to-date SQL Server and Windows environment, with no additional
Web server or platform requirements.
Microsoft Business Intelligence enables analytics, unstructured content, scorecards, dashboards, and planning processes to be as ubiquitous across the organization as
Office Word documents or Office Excel spreadsheets. All of these parts work seamlessly with each other and enable an organization to quickly and cost-effectively embed business intelligence into its day-to-day activities.
Microsoft has established itself as the leader in information-worker applications and
BOBJ relies on this leadership for many of its solutions. In the 2007 release, the full
Microsoft Office system has been redesigned to improve usability and productivity, and to integrate with enterprise data and advanced analysis capabilities.
Summary of Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects
Performance Management
Business Objects





Planning XI
Strategic planning
Forecasting
Cash flow analyzer
Budgeting
 Activity-based costing
 Reporting
 Data-driven strategic planning
 Application and process expertise
 Consolidations XI
 Performance Optimization XI
 Sales Planning XI
Microsoft Business Intelligence
 SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services
 Office PerformancePoint Server 2007
 Office SharePoint Server 2007
 Office Excel 2007
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 10
As one of the leading providers of platforms and solutions for mobile devices, Microsoft provides a wide range of capabilities for enabling a mobile workforce and delivering critical information to users on nearly any device. The capability to work both online and offline means users can continue to be productive even when a wireless connection is not available, and then synchronize when they reconnect.
This section provides an overview of performance management capabilities that are specific to budgeting and planning. Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 offers all of the necessary performance management capabilities (monitoring, analyzing, budgeting and planning) as described in the previous section.
Microsoft advantages in performance management include the following:
 Integrated BI platform
 Reduced complexity
 Open, model-driven approach
 Lower total cost of ownership
 More transparent support for audit and compliance
 Enhanced partnership with IT
 Deployment simplicity combined with model robustness
 Organizational, financial, and process flexibility
In any business, aligning employee activities to company objectives can be a challenge.
An integrated approach to performance management can provide greater insight into business performance with less cost and effort than traditional solutions. By using Office
PerformancePoint Server 2007 the business can effectively:
 Monitor performance against company goals
 Rapidly analyze key data to provide insight into trends, patterns, opportunities, and challenges in your business environment
 Plan for the future direction and expected results of the business, while helping you to anticipate internal and external factors that could adversely affect the business
By enabling a continual process of monitoring, analysis, and planning, your business becomes more effective, agile, and able to take advantage of quickly changing market conditions.
PerformancePoint Server 2007 uses SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services functionality to provide performance management capabilities. Tight integration with the Microsoft
Office system means that financial planning and reporting processes can be performed in the familiar Microsoft Office environment and benefit from the power of a world-class data management and analysis platform behind it. Even when they use the Office Excel add-in to PerformancePoint Server, users are always working with centralized data and
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 11 business logic. Business Objects solutions are based on the acquired software and are a completely separate set of applications from BOBJXI. Neither the data nor the application services are integrated with the rest of the Business Objects environment.
The architecture of Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 is simple to manage and administer, and there are fewer client tools and no spreadsheets to manage. There is a lower margin for error with a live data approach. Users simply use the Office Excel addin to work directly with their planning model data, not with a copy of a spreadsheet template that pushes data and spreadsheets back and forth. Administration and workflow management are also very simple to do.
The model-driven approach in Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 makes it easy to create corporate-wide models for reporting, scorecards, analytics, and plans that can be used across multiple business operations. With the provision of synchronized models throughout the organization, all users can easily get a consistent view of organizational performance. Office PerformancePoint Server designers work directly through the Office
PerformancePoint Server Business Modeler, which works with the application database
(Analysis Services) for any type of planning model. Office PerformancePoint Server controls access to information based on role such as an information worker who needs only basic performance metrics, or the business analyst who must rigorously plan, consolidate, and report on financial results.
Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 brings together the power of the 2007 Microsoft
Office suites and the performance, scalability, and enhanced security of SQL
Server 2005, which makes this solution easy to use and less costly to deploy than traditional performance management solutions. The cost of Office PerformancePoint
Server is much lower and requires significantly lower external consulting expense than
BOBJ Planning XI. In addition, planning administrators can create various models as they are required. BOBJ Planning XI requires a consultant to create a new planning model.
Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 enables IT staff to better support corporate governance by providing full auditing capability, version control, and reporting of the performance management process. Powerful workflow capabilities help with the performance management process of planning, budgeting, and forecasting, while providing a full audit trail and transparency in support of corporate governance. Office
PerformancePoint Server 2007 supports generally accepted accounting practices
(GAAP), international financial reporting standards (IFRS), and Sarbanes-Oxley regulations.
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 12
Business users can configure and customize business processes (rules, logic, calculations, and workflows), regardless of complexity, to match the way they think about their business, without extensive involvement from the IT department. This enables the IT staff to focus on optimizing the infrastructure and architecture, and on managing security and compliance within the overall business intelligence ecosystem.
Deploying a model in Office PerformancePoint Server is relatively simple, given the inherent complexity of the task. Significant productivity gains in many organizations can be anticipated after the initial training is completed because planning administrators can create new models as needed.
Because the system is relatively open and very flexible, Office PerformancePoint Server can be set up to handle complex financial reporting and planning environments, from multiple entities to industries that have highly technical valuation and allocation requirements.
Because of Office PerformancePoint Server 2007 and the leadership that Microsoft provides in database management systems, multidimensional OLAP, and information worker tools, Microsoft has a leadership position in the business intelligence market.
Additionally, a community of partners and third-party developers is available with a wide range of specialized industry and functionally focused applications that are based on Office PerformancePoint Server. Customers benefit from affordable relief from longstanding pain points they have experienced in planning and budgeting when using just
Office Excel (such as document proliferation and time-consuming integration), yet they still retain all of the flexibility and power spreadsheets. In addition, customers can instantly plan and begin to execute their plans by using integrated monitoring and performance indicators from the same platform.
This paper describes the major Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects components and shows how the Microsoft platform provides the basis for the complex technology ecosystem that business intelligence requires. When they use the Microsoft platform, customers find that all of the parts work together seamlessly. The existing IT staff can deploy services more quickly and less expensively and organizations need not deploy or pay for the services they do not need. Developers can use their skills across the BI value chain, without retraining, to quickly create the solutions that their business users ask for. Users can continue to work in their familiar environments and reap the benefits of a highly integrated, scalable, reliable, high-performance business intelligence solution.
For more information, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/ http://www.microsoft.com/bi/
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Comparing Microsoft Business Intelligence and Business Objects XI 13
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