Commentary on the Planning Road Map from the Dynamics Group

Right now the Dynamics group within Microsoft ”owns” Management Reporter and is currently responsible for any future budgeting/forecasting/planning solution that will come from Microsoft.  During Convergence 2009, the Dynamics group finally released their road map to the world.

To help set this up, I think a brief history lesson is in order.  For many years the Dynamics group supported two budgeting/forecasting products — Forecaster and Enterprise Reporting.  You can think of them as little brother and big brother.  Forecaster had pre-build budgeting models and parameters you worked within and therefore the deployments were quick and easy as long as those parameters worked for your business.  Enterprise Reporting could be considered an predecessor to PerformancePoint Planning.  You built models from scratch and could ultimately do more with them, but it took more work to complete a project.  Both of these products were ”mothballed” in favor of the new corporate wide CPM solution from Microsoft – PerformancePoint Server.  Basically they had ceased new development on both products and were only providing support.  In fact, they had gone so far as to actually take Enterprise Reporting completely off of the price list. 

Now my understanding is that the Dynamics group was pretty much blindsided by the announcement just like the rest of us.  And since it is pretty tough to sell an ERP package to larger clients without some sort of planning capabilities, you can surmise how important this future road map is for them.  I was lucky enough to see a preview of their road map about 3 weeks ago, but was under NDA so couldn’t comment at the time.  Now that everything is public, I am free to shoot off my mouth.

For the rest of this post, please keep in mind that this is my interpretation of the information presented and I may have missed or misunderstood something.  Also keep in mind that Microsoft has been known to change their mind suddenly about planning applications and all of this information could be totally different next week or next month. 

Definition of the Word “Irony”

Given recent events and a hectic schedule I have not had a lot of free time to update the blog.  However this post has been on my mind for a while and I figured it would be a good topic for today.

If you have ever been at a loss for a real-life example of what the word “irony” means, continue reading and prepare to be enlightened…

On the same day that Microsoft decided to announce the death of PerformancePoint, I received an email from Microsoft congratulating me on being nominated as a Microsoft MVP for the PerformancePoint product. 

That, my friends, is the definition of the word “irony”.

I am totally serious.  It actually happened.  I am sure if you saw me read the email after I had just learned the news you would have seen a look of stunned amazement on my face followed shortly thereafter by hysterical laughing.  I can’t tell you how totally surreal it is to be recognized as one of the most knowledgeable people in the world on a product that just ceased to exist!  It still cracks me up and I still shake my head when I think about it. 

My understanding is that since PPS is now gone, the MVP award nominees are being grouped in with the SQL Server nominees.  I am not exactly sure of the inner workings on this but I am told that I still have a chance to be awarded the designation.  It would be totally cool as I love the whole concept of what the MVP program is all about.  However, all my knowledge is PPS and although you had to learn SQL and SSAS for PerformancePoint, those were not my speciality — so I am not too optimistic on the outcome.  They are scheduled to announce the winners on April 1st which also would carry some degrey of irony as well. 

Wish me luck!

So What Happened?

Now that I have had time to calm down, I can write this post and hopefully sound rational and not have my blood pressure rise along with my desire to drive to the airport, buy an airline ticket, fly to Redmond and rip someone a new one.  I hope you enjoy it!

Please remember that everything I talk about in this post is my opinion and my opinion only.  It is based on my personal observations and interactions and nothing else.  Everything I say from this point on could just be a huge, steaming pile of horse dung and I could have it all wrong.  I doubt it, but on the rare occasion I have been known to err…

What do I think?  It is one of two things.  Either upper management within Microsoft does not understand the business applications market space or upper management does not want to be in the business applications market space.  Microsoft’s entry into business applications started many years ago with the purchase of Great Plains Software.  Eight years is plenty of time to learn this market in detail, even if you are totally inept.   You can say many things about Microsoft but they are never totally inept.  So to me, that means the only rational conclusion left is that Microsoft just doesn’t want to be in the business applications game. 

Planning Update from the Dynamics Group

So this afternoon we had a phone call with folk representing the Dynamics group.  We were asked to treat the call as if we were under a formal NDA and I will honor that, so I am self censoring what specific details I am going to discuss.   However, I am going to list information that I feel would not violate the spirit of the agreement.  None of this is really new but I do hope to add a little more detail.   Please keep in mind that Microsoft can always change their mind on this type of stuff.

The good thing about the call was that it was attended by some long time Dynamics team members including some I have known for well over a decade.   While I have not always agreed with all of their decisions in the past, I do trust that the people making them take a “business applications” view of things.  And when making decisions they try, although not always successfully, to balance the needs of Microsoft with those of both the client and the partner channel.