Picked up from Dan Meyers and Peter Koller, it looks like Microsoft are working on some packaged BI solutions aimed at specific verticals which will be sold under the brand name ‘Enterprise Cube’. Apart from Mark Kromer’s blog, which Dan points to, the only other information I can find about it is this session abstract from the Australian BI summit, which describes the first of these solutions aimed at the telco industry:
Microsoft Enterprise Cube – BPM Solutions for Today’s Business Needs
Haresh Khatwani, Group Product Manager MEC, Microsoft & Daniel Yu, Product Manager, Industry Solutions Group, Microsoft
Microsoft Enterprise Cube is the only packaged end-to-end BI offering at Microsoft and provides the framework for pain-point-specific BI solutions for industry verticals. Using case studies form leading telecommunications companies in the USA and Korea this session will show you how the MEC framework enables modularity, quick installation, quick time-to-market and how your organisation can leverage the Microsoft BI product stack to report, analyze, trend and forecast business data without effecting live business support systems.
I’m always sceptical about the technical value of generalised industry solutions, except when the data involved varies so little in format that you can genuinely stick a pre-defined cube on top of anyone’s data with the minimum of customisation. For example, solutions on the Microsoft BI platform that I know about that can do this include Data Intelligence’s PharmaAnalytics solution for pharma market research data, and PrecisionPoint’s solution for Dynamics, and I’m sure there are hundreds of other similar ones out there. Perhaps they could be brought into the ‘Enterprise Cube’ fold too under some kind of partner programme?
From a marketing point of view, though, I think it makes a lot of sense – it will bring on board a lot of customers and partners who would otherwise not look at the Microsoft BI platform, and as Peter comments this is something the other BI vendors have been doing for a long time and makes Microsoft look more credible in this space.
Chris, any idea whether the "cube" in question is generated using the new PerformancePoint planning functionality?
– Deepak
No idea at all, I\’m afraid – from the sound of things I wuld think not. I\’m sure when it all gets released we\’ll find out more…
Deepak,
MEC contains predefined pluggable, industry-standard data models for different verticals for ex Telco which will be pumped with customer specific data to analyze predefined parameters specific to that vertical/module.
For your question the answer is NO.
Hi Chris,Is this available now? I cannot find any latest things related to this. Hasnt MS released MEC yet?
Hi Dinesh, I think it\’s been around for a long time, but I think it\’s just what\’s referred to as a \’service offering\’ – a kind of proof-of-concept that lures you into buying consultancy from Microsoft Consulting. It\’s not generally available as a product.
Thanks for the reply Chris,One of the consultants have recommended to use Microsoft Enterprise Cube for a company as a solution, and the solution says that it is kind of 16-weeks implementation for tel-co industry since it has pre-built db (both relational and OLAP) structures, modules and screens (I think dashboards from MOSS+PP).If it is not available as a product, has Microsoft open (or published) modules suggested? Is there a way to find more details on it? Thanks
I\’m afraid I don\’t know any more about MEC than what I\’ve written here, but I\’d be surprised if there was any code or documentation freely available on the web.