Gathering Intelligence

Business Objects and MicroStrategy both supported this agenda with the separate release last week of new integration products. Each promises new levels of integration but addresses dramatically different business requirements.

MicroStrategy has embraced the truism that most people prefer to work within familiar applications. The McLean, Va., company's new MicroStrategy Office adds business intelligence (BI) capabilities to the menu bar of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

"New customers like the look because they don't have to learn a new BI tool," said Chael Christopher, managing partner of BI Atlantic Intelligence, Boston. "For existing MicroStrategy customers, it's a way to extend [BI] to others in the organization."

Priced at $595 per named user, MicroStrategy Office is available now.

Meanwhile, Business Objects' Data Integrator 6.5 tightens ties between its analytical software and the Crystal Decisions reporting technology. The version now enables business users to create data marts directly from Crystal reports. It also allows them to view histories of report data, drill for deeper understanding and see trends.

The new version also has extract, transform, load (ETL) capabilities that go head-to-head against products from ETL leaders Ascential Software and Informatica. Other features include data profiling and cleansing, licensed from Firstlogic, La Crosse, Wis.; improved debugging; and parallel ETL processing.

"[Business Objects] already has a large client base with analytics and reporting software. Now they can tout the integration aspects of their tools," said Eric Shepherd, senior consultant at Axis Group, Short Hills, N.J.

Data Integrator 6.5's basic edition is $40,000, $75,000 for the departments edition and $150,000 for enterprise.