REDMOND, Wash — May 10, 2005 — Microsoft Corp. today announced availability of a private beta release of a new server-based business performance management scorecard application. Code-named “Maestro,” the new application takes advantage of the power of the Microsoft® Office System to help organizations perform deep analysis by allowing them to build, manage and use scorecards and key performance indicators — all within an intuitive and collaborative environment. “Maestro” provides companies with a broad view of business opportunities, through which employees can better understand business challenges, effectively shape solutions and quickly execute on their objectives. Decision-making happens across all levels of an organization, and empowering employees with powerful business intelligence (BI) solutions can help them have greater impact.
“‘Maestro’ provides Skanska USA Building with the visibility and tools needed to improve business performance that are critical in today’s marketplace,” said Allen Emerick, IT director for Skanska USA Building Inc., which is participating in the private beta program for “Maestro.” “The up-to-date views of our business enable us to home in on progress against key performance indicators, allowing us to quickly identify focus areas and take action.”
BI continues to be a natural and important area of investment for Microsoft’s Information Worker Business, which is focused on helping individuals, teams and organizations be more productive with the range of programs, servers and services that make up the Microsoft Office System.
“‘Maestro’ helps businesses turn information into action by surfacing key business data in the Office System,” said Lewis Levin, corporate vice president of Office Business Applications at Microsoft. “‘Maestro’ is a key deliverable in our strategy for BI, bridging the gap between enterprise data sources and the information workers who need to view and analyze business information as well as plan, make decisions and collaborate with others.”
“Maestro” Benefits
Dramatically enhancing the BI technologies originally released by Microsoft in the Business Scorecard Accelerator last summer, “Maestro” is well-suited to business scorecard projects for which ease of use, deployment and integration with Microsoft Office System solutions are important. “Maestro” allows a company to do the following:
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Align actions with strategy. Many companies struggle to articulate business strategies and align employees’ daily activities with those goals. Scorecards built with “Maestro” provide a reliable and pragmatic approach to how businesses define strategy, provide information and access to employees, and show how projects align with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and objectives. “Maestro” allows scorecards, initiatives and action plans to be monitored, managed and measured throughout the organization.
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Gain complete insight into context. “Maestro” helps companies make sense of their business data by putting it in the context of KPIs. Employees can gain deeper insight by combining “Maestro”‘s rich scorecarding functionality with reports, charting, graphs and analysis tools as well as unstructured data such as documents, spreadsheets and Web sites.
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Collaborate on business management and action. “Maestro” provides a robust framework for interpreting and working with business information, allowing people to not only understand data in its appropriate context, but also more effectively collaborate on group analysis and take action to improve business performance.
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Empower employees to monitor and deliver against key metrics. Integrating with easy-to-use tools such as the Microsoft Office 2003 Editions and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003, “Maestro” empowers end users to build, manage and use scorecards. At the same time, “Maestro” leverages companies’ existing skills, technology and investments to help them get more value with less cost and time.
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Achieve extensible functionality. “Maestro” offers a scalable platform that enables the customization that independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) need to extend its functionality or integrate scorecards into line-of-business applications or other custom applications.
Robust Platform for Partner Solutions
“Maestro” provides new business opportunities for SI, value-added reseller and ISV partners. Using the Microsoft Office System platform, the Microsoft SQL Server (TM) platform and the Visual Studio® tool set, these partners can extend the out-of-the-box functionality of “Maestro” with additional analysis tools, and integrate “Maestro” as a scorecarding solution into line-of-business applications. With “Maestro,” partners also can take advantage of the opportunity to enter a growing BPM industry.
According to a March 4, 2005, Gartner Analyst Report, corporate performance management was a $520 million market in 2003 in terms of new license revenue, and is projected to reach more than $900 million by 2009 with a compound annual growth rate of 9.9 percent.1
“‘Maestro’ provides Panorama Software with a powerful platform on which we can build enterprise-ready solutions to address the key performance management needs of our customers,” said Eynav Azarya, CEO of Panorama Software Ltd. “It delivers a robust and scalable BPM scorecarding framework that will help us innovate in the business intelligence market and create greater success opportunities for our customers.”
“Maestro” was released today to testing partners as part of a private beta release. A public beta version is scheduled to be available this summer. Estimated retail prices and final availability are yet to be determined.Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
1 Gartner Research, “Market Focus: Corporate Performance Management, Worldwide, 2003-2009,” by C. Eschinger, et al. March 4, 2005.
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