Microsoft Office System — Solution Brief
“New functionality such as Excel Services and the Office Open XML
Formats provides ACNielsen with the potential to greatly increase the
value Answers Interactive already brings to our clients.”— Mike Askew,
Project Manager, ACNielsen
ACNielsen uses the 2007 Microsoft Office system to extend anytime
access to market analysis for clients worldwide
Situation
As the world's leading marketing information provider, ACNielsen, a
VNU business, provides a wide range of market research, analytical
tools, and professional services to help customers understand market
dynamics, uncover new opportunities, and make more strategic
marketing decisions. One key product offering developed by
ACNielsen is Answers Interactive (AI) a leading-edge, collaborative
Web tool that enables customers to download, manipulate, and share
marketplace insights and analysis in a Web environment. ACNielsen
AWI/NITRO, a Microsoft® Office interface to the organization’s
platform, enables customers to access and work with information
through the desktop tools they already know and use.
While NITRO is used by more than 35,000 industry executives in 100
countries every month, ACNielsen wants to build upon the existing
platform to make it more scalable for its customer base, including
those customers working on non-Microsoft workstations. At the same
time, current NITRO functionality such as template development and
Web publishing must remain available to users without requiring
additional programming. ACNielsen is also interested in replacing,
where possible, previous proprietary code to reduce costs associated
with developing and maintaining these tools in-house.
Solution
As participants in the Microsoft Rapid Deployment Technology
Adoption Program, ACNielsen hopes to explore the benefits that come
from improved integration between Microsoft Office client applications
and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007. Native support for
Microsoft Office Open XML Formats throughout the 2007 Microsoft
Office system will help ACNielsen enhance the AI user experience and
make its valuable market information accessible to even more
customers worldwide.
First, by introducing new Microsoft Office Excel® Services, part of
Office SharePoint Server 2007, ACNielsen intends to provide its
customers with the ability to interact with spreadsheet data through
any Web browser, allowing rich market information to be accessed
and analyzed using enhanced visualization schemes to spot
exceptions and discern trends. Additionally, users will be able to
expand and collapse Microsoft PivotTable® views, sort and filter tables,
and interact with a spreadsheet all within the browser. At the same
time, ACNielsen hopes to ensure greater control of sensitive data by
centralizing information through a single, server-side information source
through Office SharePoint Sever 2007.
ACNielsen anticipates that the use of the new Office XML Formats will
greatly simplify the process of creating analysis reports. Running the
Office XML Formats conversion tool on the server will allow NITRO to
provide appropriate format versions of reports to users on demand.
Customers can then use Excel Services to render the results of specific
queries, taking much of the computational load off individual client
computers performing calculations and reducing the time needed to
process and compile data reports.
ACNielsen also hopes to take advantage of the full support that
Microsoft Office Excel 2007 has for Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005
Analysis Services to further extend the analytic capabilities of the AI
solution to customers. Advantages include the ability for information
from multiple data sources to be brought together within a single Excel
report to provide even greater insight into market trends.
Benefits
 To extend the value of Web services by providing customers with the
ability to access and work with live data through Web-based Excel data
analysis tools
 To establish simplified access to data by keeping business logic
centrally managed through server-side calculation and data
management tools
 To perform more powerful data analysis using enhanced business
intelligence tools in Office Excel 2007 and SQL Server 2005 Analysis
Services
 To reduce the long-term cost of developing and maintaining
proprietary tools by integrating more fully with the 2007 Microsoft Office
system
Fast Facts
Customer: ACNielsen Web Site: www.acnielsen.com Country/Region: Global Industry: Market Research
Customer Profile
Software and Services
Business Situation Summary
2007 Microsoft® Office system
ACNielsen wants to expand the reach of
ACNielsen is the world's leading provider of
its online service offerings and reduce

Microsoft Office Excel® 2007
marketing research information services.
costly in-house development by

Microsoft Office SharePoint®
Support software for ACNielsen analytics
implementing new technologies in the
Server 2007
tools and research services is used by more
2007 Microsoft Office system.
Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003
than 35,000 industry users in 100 countries.
© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. The information contained in this document relates to prerelease software product
which may be substantially modified before its first commercial release. Accordingly, the information may not accurately describe or
reflect the software product when first commercially released. This document is provided for informational purposes only and Microsoft
makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to this document or the information contained in it. Microsoft, Excel, the Office logo,
SharePoint, and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other
countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Document published June 2006.