Portal Wars--The Latest Volley

Regular PG readers will remember this post from about 10 days or so ago where we talked about the potential future importance of the Portal in determining the BI strategy for many companies. The thinking goes that since so much BI functionality is being put into the portal, and with the increased need to collaborate and work across teams, this "Team BI" concept becomes critically important to how we use BI information as individuals, as well as how we align with our corporate and organizational goals.

So it's not entirely surprising, given this hypothesis, to see Business Objects announce yesterday that they're going to provide a free PIK (or portal integration kits to you BI rubes) from the XI platform and Crystal reporting roducts into the Microsoft SharePoint portal, affectionately known as MOSS (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server--catchy, isn't it?).

This integration is a great attempt to lower the threshold of the potential issue of having different collaboration and BI tools in-house, which is a smart move for both companies--Microsoft, continuing its partnering ways with all BI vendors and platforms, making MOSS a versatile and open portal platform that can work with everyone, and for Business Objects, they get to show their flexibility and independence as well, and can draft behind the momentum of MOSS in the marketplace.

Good times, good times...