PPS Planning Being Discontinued

So needless to say I was a little shocked when the rumors I began to hear Wednesday turned out to be real with the formal announcement that was made on Friday.   My shock has since turned to anger and frustration.    

I decided to hold off posting anything until I had time to cool off and until we had our one-on-one call with some of the Microsoft executives in Redmond who run the BI arena.  My hope was to have some greater insights before I posted anything. 

Unfortunately the amount of actual valuable information we got today was ZERO.  Right now, they either don’t have any answers for us or don’t have any answers that they are able/willing to share.  This includes answers to really simple question that anyone who was in anyway involved in this decision should have been able to answer.  I wish I had more to share other than this whole thing has been and continues to be handled horribly.   My gut tells me that they didn’t think this thing through because a timely and rationally made decision would have involved being ready to answer basic questions and concerns.  I see none of that on Microsoft’s part. 

Our next call is with leaders in the Dynamics group on Wednesday to see if we can figure out what they are thinking.  I don’t hold out hope for that call.  Not because I don’t think they will hide anything, but apparently this whole thing was just dumped into their lap on Friday as well and how much of a plan can they have come up with in three days.  Our goal is to find out in concrete terms what it means to have a reinvestment in Forecaster or Enterprise Reporting. 

So for anyone who might care here are the rest of my thoughts on this whole mess: