tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-230685232009-10-05T10:38:30.484-07:00md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1155202218322805922006-08-10T02:18:00.000-07:002006-08-10T03:18:30.136-07:00

This week I had the pleasure of attending the SAP User Group (SAUG) and Duet launch in Sydney Australia. I was actually at the SAUG to co-present with Microsoft on the capabilities of Microsoft’s BI technologies on top of SAP & SAP BW. I learned a very valuable lesson this week….There is a bug with Microsoft’s Virtual PC software. If you plug a monitor / overhead projector into your laptop after

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1154562828017596792006-08-02T16:45:00.000-07:002006-08-02T16:53:48.026-07:00

Many of you have probably seen this IDC report already, but in case you haven't take a look. A few things that I take away from it:1. They talk about the 3rd wave of BI starting in the 2005 stand point. This is similar thought as previous post. I fully agree with this point and this is a good one to bring up when talking to customers / prospects to make them feel good about the long term

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1154247209192323872006-07-30T00:47:00.000-07:002006-07-30T15:58:45.466-07:00

Ok, I know I have not posted for a long time. This is true, but I have a good excuse. Three weeks of vacation (e.g. Hawaii, Denver and Indiana), A week in Boston for the Microsoft partner conference, and then a couple weeks of trying to get caught back up on the work load that piled up during that time. I am back now though and plan to continue providing content around selling and positioning

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1148553640257733742006-05-25T03:33:00.000-07:002006-05-25T03:40:40.266-07:00

I have been meaning to drill down on an earlier post where I refer to Symmetry Corporations white paper comparing the history of BO BI vs MS BI. Well thanks to Stephane R. Langer's post Cubes & universes there is less for me to do now. Stephane does a great job of discussion Business Objects universes compared to SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services cubes. There are some good points in here that

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1147229299894635672006-05-09T19:40:00.000-07:002006-05-09T19:48:19.906-07:00

Mark Rittman does a nice post post reviewing Oracle's current BI offering and suite. It's always good to know what you are competing against! It includes some screen shots and details of the architecture. From a position stand point there are some obvious area of catch-up to SQL 2005 and some additional areas of work to integrate products. Overall, Oracle is probably on the right track, but

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1146810041439614192006-05-04T23:09:00.000-07:002006-05-16T02:33:43.476-07:00

The other day I was asked "Why are organizations moving to Microsoft's BI platform? Is there a white paper or something that outlines the reasons?" Well instead of writing a white paper I thought I would answer that question here. This is a tough question to answer or position, but if answered well will win MS and you a lot of business and take a lot away from the competition. Why would you

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1146616526373251102006-05-02T17:32:00.000-07:002006-05-02T17:35:26.390-07:00

Tim Wragg's blog has a good post on Top 5 things Businesses will want with SharePoint 2007.On a side note, SharePoint is one the best selling points of Microsoft's BI platform as well, as it provides customers with something that the other BI providers don't deliver with their solution. This is a very strong selling point that should be utilised.

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1146485762243341442006-05-01T05:13:00.000-07:002006-05-01T05:16:02.243-07:00

If you haven't read Guy Kawasaki's "Signum sine tinnitu" blog before have a look. It is one of the blogs that I enjoy. It's now on my blog roll.

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1146297109730922922006-04-29T00:24:00.000-07:002006-04-29T00:51:49.740-07:00

Thanks to Chris Webb's blog on Oracle BI where he references Mark Rittman's Oracle Weblog post on Oracle's Collaborate '06 conference, we have some good little bits to use if selling against Oracle, Business Objects or Cognos.First, talking about Siebel Analytics now Oracle Analytics he states "I also had a play around with the Dashboard element of BI Suite EE, it looks very slick, a vast

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1146200349981267832006-04-27T21:50:00.000-07:002006-04-27T21:59:09.990-07:00

I came across Charlie Maitlands Pre-sales blog. This is the sort of stuff that I am looking for. If you know of other sites like this around please let me know as I am on the hunt.

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1145525843382616412006-04-20T02:18:00.000-07:002006-04-20T14:49:30.860-07:00

When we talk about strategy in the BI market, a term that I like to use is "Second Generation". what does it mean? The first generation of BI solutions in the market are mature and its an era that is coming to a close. If you look at all the traditional players like SAS, Cognos, Business Objects, etc. they are on version 9 - 11 of their products. they all started in the 70's and have made it

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1145431935018920852006-04-19T00:27:00.000-07:002006-04-19T00:32:15.033-07:00

In a recent opportunity I was competing agaist Business Objects. This brief white paper summarised basically how I wanted to position against BO at the business user stand point. It was also good that it came from a 3rd party so I could claim that it was someone else's opinion besides my own. Thank Symmetry Corp. Currently working on positioning against features at a more ganular level. More

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1143617085415286352006-03-28T23:09:00.000-08:002006-03-28T23:24:45.430-08:00

I've been watching Pentaho for awhile now and I believe it is a potential open source challenger to Microsoft and the other BI vendors out there. Realatively young still, but they have been making good progress. With a bunch of ex-Lawson's Enterprise Performance Management group running the company and a ex-Business Objects guy heading up the marketing, it seems like a pretty solid management

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1142499383902354382006-03-16T00:43:00.000-08:002006-03-16T13:33:01.780-08:00

In this post I am going to talk about Cognos and the issues that we as Microsoft partners have when competing against. I run into Cognos constantly and I want every deal to go Microsoft’s way from here forward.Issues we face:1. They are a worldwide organisation so when dealing with multi-nationals they can position themselves as having worldwide coverage.2. Because they are a worldwide

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23068523.post-1142498600114325412006-03-16T00:39:00.000-08:002006-03-16T13:33:23.426-08:00

Here is my entry into blogging. Here we go... I work with Microsoft's BI technologies. I'm not a salesman, but I'm not a guru technical person either. I work on the business development side of things, but build most of my own demo's and do high level consulting from time to time. What I wanted to do with my blog is talk about market analysis and positioning with some technology components thrown

md_millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13058925336835767057noreply@blogger.com0