Recently Gartner published his annual "Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence Platforms, 2008" report where software vendors are placed in one of four quadrants within a square : niche players, visionaries, challengers, and leaders..
This year Microsoft is placed among the leaders. Furthermore Gartner placed Microsoft above the other two leaders, its ability to execute, including the competitiveness and success of its BI goods and services, its viability and investment in BI, and the execution of its sales and pricing.
In its report, written by James Richardson and three other Gartner analysts, the firm cites the attractiveness of Microsoft's integrated Office suite, its PerformancePoint Server released last year, and SQL Server to businesses standardized on Microsoft platforms. "The bundling and pricing of its BI products makes [Microsoft] an economically attractive offering that will be considered by many organizations," the analysts wrote, adding that Microsoft's large development community will further the platform.
You can read the complete article here.
A sharp reader recognises that most of these components are available within a Microsoft CRM 4.0 implementation. Therefore it is save to say that the BI capacabilities of Microsoft will push Microsoft CRM to even greater heights..
