Dashboarding, scorecarding and analytics are bundled into SharePoint while PerformancePoint and its planning engine reach the end of the line.


Microsoft made anannouncement that presents good news and bad news for customers and partners who are developing on the PerformancePoint Server product. The good news is that the dashboarding, scorecarding and analytic capabilities of PerformancePoint are now being made available as free services to customers with an enterprise license of SharePoint Server. The bad news is that PerformancePoint and its planning functionality will no longer be offered as a separate product, though there will be a final "Service Pack3" upgrade to the planning functionality released this summer. Translation? Microsoft's BI team is backing away from deep financial and operational performance management, ceding those opportunities to the Microsoft Dynamics unit and stranding some customers and partners in the process.

Microsoft says it is bundling high-demand PerformancePoint functionality like dashboarding, scorecarding and advanced analytics with SharePoint to better fulfill its longstanding goal of spreading business intelligence to the broadest possible base of users. Read this article by Doug Henschen at intelligent enterprise