Talent Raid!

Our old friends at Microstrategy are at it again. Love them or hate them, you have to acknowledge they have a defined marketing strategy that’s very public, very brash, and very much not seeming to care about what other people think. You want earnings guidance? Pshaw. Lower support costs? Give me a break. Conventional marketing? You’re kidding, right?

Their latest gambit focuses on publicly announcing their desire to raid talent from both Business Objects and Cognos at the grown up version of a career day, to be held on November 29th at Microstrategy offices in cities around the world.

If I’m Business Objects or Cognos, do I not just have my senior people stand outside the Microstrategy offices that night to see if I recognize anyone? Or do I not care if my people are going to this company?

Probably the latter I’d suspect—after all, if people want to leave and feel that they have a better opportunity elsewhere, you’ve likely already lost them. Plus, given all the activity around HR and personnel issues these days, if I'm smart I've already had private, 1:1 chats with all my key people to keep them around.

And while I’ve certainly received my fair share of emails and phone calls from friends and former colleagues in the past few months inquiring about potential openings, only Microstrategy would be bold enough to go public with their quest for the best talent. Personally I love the approach. As the saying goes, it's not bragging if you can do it--so let's see who they can peel off.

I'm just thankful on this Thanksgiving week that there's still have a vendor is keeping things interesting!

The Microstrategy POV on the SAP and Business Objects Deal

Among the finest things to watch is the aftermath of any proposed acquisition is the competitive response. The Microstrategy camp has issued their own set of talking points and review of the SAP acquisition of Business Objects. They are fairly straight forward with their position - this is bad for customers and Microstrategy is the only pure play focused on BI. Of interest is the handy reference guide they provide on product overlap.

Significant Areas of Product Overlap Between Business Objects and SAP
Product Category	Business Objects	SAP
Dashboards and Scorecards	Xcelsius, Dashboard Manager, Crystal Vision	Visual Composer, Web Application Designer
Query, Analysis and Reporting	Web Intelligence, OLAP Intelligence, Voyager, Crystal Reports, Cartesis, Inxight Software	BEx Web Analyzer, BEx Analyzer, ABAP™, BEx Report Designer, Pilot
Office Plug-ins	Live Office	BEx Analyzer
Application Infrastructure	Nsite (on demand), crystalreports.com Vertical and Horizontal Apps	NetWeaver xApps Vertical and Horizontal Apps
Desktop Design Tools	Desktop Intelligence, Designer	BEx Query Designer
Portals	InfoView	SAP NetWeaver Portal
Performance Management or CPM	SRC, ALG Software, Cartesis	SEM-BCS, BPS, Netweaver® BI-Integrated Planning, OutlookSoft, Netweaver® BI Advanced Planner and Optimizer, mySAP ERP Express Planning
Master Data Management	Metadata Manager, Composer	SAP NetWeaver® Master Data Management
ETL/EII/EIM	Data Integrator (Acta), Data Federator (Medience), Data Quality (Firstlogic, FUZZY! Informatik)	Data Extraction routines to populate SAP BI
Mobile	Mobile Interactive Viewing (InfoView Mobile)	SAP NetWeaver® Mobile

Source: Microstrategy website. Link is HERE.


Also of interest is the fact that this is not totally complete or accurate. For example, there is no mention of the Dashboard Builder or Performance Manager as part of the dashboard and scorecard offering in box one. However, they do give at least one overview of the variety of overlap. As of this writing, no analyst or 3rd party has provide a similar side by side comparison that I have seen.

If I was SAP and Business Objects, I would fully expect to see this in wide circulation in competitive deals.

BI Equals Better Operating Margin

Great case study on Dick's sporting goods today in CIO Insight and how they used BI to improve their operating margin and improve inventory management. The case study is great PR for Microstrategy and manages to call out a lack of performance by Cognos and Business Objects in sales campaigns and in deployment. All good PR types and the vendors they work for crave this kind of huge PR win.

Even better for end users of BI and performance management is that the connection to operational improvement and margin is spelled out in black and white. The business of business intelligence would take off in a big hurry if everyone could show the same direction connection between the data you have and business results. Showing a straightline from BI to improved operating margin would decrease meetings and free up budget in a big hurry.