Last week I posted about a demo Microsoft did at the BI conference that used their surface table to deliver a BI demo.

Well nismith got backstage for this demo and got a sneak peak.

UPDATE – looks like the video has been pulled – dont know why but I have emailed to ask for it back

A very cool demo – reality, no (unless Microsoft want to loan me a Surface Table, Hint Hint),  but a good thought provoking idea.

EDIT

I have come up with a nice scenario that could merge BI and the Surface platform:

We shop at our local Sainsburys’ which has a loyalty card scheme called Nectar. It also has a Starbucks in store.

My idea is that in the Starbucks they could have Surface tables. if you put your Nectar card on the table it could read the unique barcode on the card and then display the BI data about the spending I have done over time at the supermarket.

I could then look at my spending patterns whilst sipping my latte and the supermarket could also be serving up contextual adverts.

I win by seeing where my budget goes and the supermarket wins with access to an engaged audience.

No doubt one day!

Chris Webb has a final round up of some views on this new project that was announced at the BI conference. I particularly like this quote:

"Where is the single version of the truth in this architecture? I’ve just spent 4 years of my life trying to convince users to stop using Excel as a data store and here are Microsoft positively encouraging it. Hell will freeze over before this capability is used responsibly in most organisations".

I have little to add but I do think it is highlighting a view that I came across frequently when working in the Microsoft BI space namely that the development of BI at Microsoft is becoming more and more detached from real world deployment.

This view first came to my attention in the fiasco that was the SQL 2005 SP1 to SP2 transition. At first I dismissed this but the more I wrestled with the quirks the more I wondered.

I now wonder if this is another example of the left hand not getting what the right hand is doing, much like the gaps between the work the Excel team do and the SQL team do.

First off a disclaimer. I am NOT a Master Data Management (MDM) expert – far from it. I am just a pre-sales consultant that has to raise the concept on almost every engagement I am involved with.

Having got that out of the way I was intrigued to read this post from Mick Horne at Conchango. Now I take anything a Conchango employee says VERY seriously as they are all very bright lights and lots of what they do and say makes my brain hurt!

In the post he reflects

 

Having sat through three keynotes, I’m now concerned that I haven’t heard any mention of two areas that are important to the work I’ve been doing for the last 3 or 4 years and in one of those cases which I thought would be fundamental to Microsoft’s strategy for BI going forward.

The glaring omission is Master Data Management.  In 2007 Microsoft purchased Stratature, one of the leading MDM tools on the SQL Server platform which looked at the time incredibly sensible since it filled a big gap in Microsoft’s portfolio for BI and data integration.

I’m left wondering where Microsoft see Stratature (now "Micorosft MDM") fitting into their vision for BI; clearly it’s not near the top of the priority list. There have been several posts on these blog pages about what MDM is and where it fits into data integration architecture, and one of its key roles is in the enablement of data services as part of an SOA.  This is the second omission from any of the keynotes so far and I’ll come back to it. ( emphasis MINE)

Now I would agree that there did not seem (based on someone who was not there) to be much shouting about this and I think the responses Mick got at the Q&A session reflected this but I suspect there were 3(probably more) reasons for this.

Firstly the marketing drive of the conference was the democratization of BI. As such MDM is seen as a back end tool and, quite frankly, not sexy. If there had been keynotes about it then the “message” might have been lost.

The second reason I think is that the perception, and in 80% of the cases the correct perception, is that the core of MDM is NOT a technical problem. It is first and foremost a business problem. The issue is far less a technical one but one of balancing the client’s internal politics and balancing the needs of the project sponsor with those of the rest of the business.

If you have a successful client team and good senior management then the business issues can be resolved and then, and only then, it moves to a technical issue.

The third reason I think is that the purchase of Stratature has not yet bedded down. I suspect (based on no evidence I admit) that there is still considerable discussion about where in the product line up it will sit, how it is going to be developed and what is going to happed to features that overlap other MS products. This seems a bit like ProClarity. Lots of work getting the product embedded into the Microsoft way, lots of code reviews, quality checks and documentation updates before it can even appear on the Microsoft pricelist.

In conclusion I think the reasons Microsoft didn’t get MDM at the BI conference is that:

1. Its not sexy end user self serve stuff
2. Its not relevant to the audience they were pitching at (see 1)
3. Its primarily a “soft” business issue that Microsoft don’t really care about (No revenue)
4. It was not invented there. The cultural shift has not been achieved and the overlaps with other Microsoft products has not yet been

Ok I am now REALLY jealous of all the BI people at the conference!

This post covers my slight disappointment at there not being more PerformancePoint news coming out of the conference but it seems the best is yet to come.

It hints at a demo using PerformancePoint and Microsoft’s Surface technology.

Now Surface is a touch sensitive table that allows users to manipulate images and items using their fingers. I would love to see how a presentation of a BI and forecasting tool will be deployed to such an interactive medium. I hope there is a video!

One of the recurring themes I encounter when talking to customers about how they are going to implement CRM is the issue of Master Data Management. That is getting them to think about and establish which of their systems is going to be the controlling point for data entities. Needless to say this often revolves around account data but also frequently includes Invoices and orders.

Now there is no simple solution to this and it often involves delicate discussions with different business users. Typically the CRM implementation is being sponsored by front line business users and sales but the accounting team need to be engaged with as well.

The higher up the enterprise chain you go the more complex this issue becomes as more systems and strategies are involved.

I was particularly interested, therefore, in a post Jeremy Kashel from the excellent Adatis team made from the BI Conference which linked to this presentation (pptx) which deals with what Master Data Management really means. It is unfortunately one of those obtuse Microsoft slide decks   but there are some very worthwhile points in it. Such as:

MDM Misconceptions

1.MDM is a data warehousing project

2.MDM is solely for maintaining data consistency across business transaction systems

3.MDM is simply another data integration project

4.MDM integrates and manages all enterprise-wide data

MDM is a data quality project

I have been following the announcements that have come out of the Microsoft BI conference that is going on at the moment. There is a whole raft of incredibly good stuff coming out which I wont cover off here as well (See Chris Webbs blog for a good starting point )

I do tend to agree with Chris’ and others points that end user BI (A major theme of the conference) has been a holy grail for a long time but with it comes as many issues as solutions.

I do also love this post from Mick Horne on his “interesting” route to the conference and his registration / welcome experiences

What was particularly disturbing on this occasion was that there were people there filming it. Has the world gone mad? Who in their right mind is going to watch a feature length documentary of overweight geeks chatting to each other about SQL Server? It would be some kind of snuff-movie-in-reverse whereby anyone unfortunate enough to watch it would be so bored that they would be unable to get out of their seat and eventually die as their neural functions shut down at the sheer horror of it all.

I picked up this post from the SQLTeam site.

It links to details on how SQL Server is being supported in Virtual Environments.

It would seem that if your configuration is SVVP Certified then you will get a better response but Microsoft seem to be very worried, quite rightly, that supporting in a virtual environment adds a whole new layer of complexity.

This is especially true for performance, but that’s another rant.

For far too long I have featured far too high in the Google ranking for searches on Performance Point.

I see that I have now finally been demoted  to page 2 but what is disappointing is that some of the far more knowledgeable blogs such as the guys at Adatis  or Patrick Husting and many more are not getting the look in they deserve.

I suppose that’s computers for you.

It is nice to see that reports are coming out of how people are getting on with real world deployments of PerformancePoint. This post from Alan Whitehouse is particularly good.

Yes no sooner is it out than the update treadmill starts.

I well remember the pain all these updates caused us at PrecisionPoint. Keeping up to date with the updates, testing them, deploying them to multiple clients if they fixed one of the bugs we had found and keeping track of it all was a nightmare.

I had hopped that SQL 2008 would have put all that behind it but it seems my fears have come true. Whilst I dont know about the bug Teo refers to in SSAS I do know it dents your confidence if you dont know if you are fighting a bug in the engine, a bug in the front end or a genuine error in your cube.

Thanks to Teo for this