Microsoft discontinues PerformancePoint Server

24 January 2009

Whether you’re looking for an impassioned blog or some harder analysis, like it or not Microsoft PerformancePoint Server is gone. Did Microsoft kill their shot at being a major player in performance management market when on January 23rd 2008, the day after releasing poor quarterly results, they announced PerformancePoint Server was to be discontinued? Whatever your thoughts, after a final SP3 release in mid 2009 there will be no further enhancements with future functionality rolled into other Microsoft products.

Existing Microsoft PerformancePoint users have a difficult choice; will they deploy through SP3 and wait on a zombie product, look to the market for an alternative or follow the Microsoft vision of “BI to the masses” and plan for PerformancePoint Services for Sharepoint.

Performance Management is now a core offering from the world's largest software vendors. IBM, Oracle, and SAP all have comprehensive solutions in this area built largely by acquisition. One might even include the offerings from Infor and SAS in a top tier of Performance Management vendors whose offerings combining performance management, business intelligence and, at least in some cases, ERP. Beneath this top tier are solutions focused more on financial performance management; covering budgeting, planning, forecasting, consolidation and reporting with some available as SaaS offerings.

A good step for any company looking at the Performance Management market would be the buyers guide produced by BPM Partners with Business Finance Magazine. Even then the choice will not be easy and reports of complex and ultimately costly implementations will be a concern. In these cases an experienced partner is essential and Northdoor offer an end-to-end approach from vendor selection through design, implementation and long term support. If you would like to speak with one of our team about their experiences in this market click here.