Microsoft and its future plans for FRx
I’m at the partner briefing at Microsoft Convergence, where Microsoft has this afternoon outlined its plans for FRx. Partners and customers alike…we’ve all been waiting for FRx 7.0, initially projected for maybe a year and a half ago. We’ve all had hopes of seeing this product with some “21st century” functionality.
Big News
Well, the big announcement is that there’s not going to be an FRx 7.0. Instead, Microsoft is focusing its efforts on the financial reporting module of its PerformancePoint Server, code named Sierra. Version 1, the reportwriter only, is to debut in late 2007 or early 2008. There is a whole new user interface, dot net programming and a SQL Server back end. (YAY!!) For those of you who have ever seen a demo of the FRx 7.0 interface, this is it. I think.
A standalone version of FRx will still be available, apparently long into the foreseeable future, although additional programming on it sounds very limited in scope. Their main focus will be Sierra.
Legal Entities
On a related note, the FRx legal entity is being dissolved and will be merged into Microsoft as of June 30, 2007. It is/will be a part of the Microsoft Office Business Applications team. Big change.
Support will also move to MBS, in my view a significant fact for non-MBS ERPs.
More Product Details
But back to the FRx product for some more details. Forecaster is also being rolled into PerformancePoint. From 2008 to 2010, more and more functionality of the two products will show up in PerformancePoint.
To answer what is probably the biggest question: they will continue to support standalone FRx for a good while (although there are no hard answers). And while the license to use the product is perpetual, they anticipate that at some future time support would end. (But who wants to use an unsupported product?)
They will have an upgrade path to PerformancePoint: for those on a current support plan, there will be a license exchange program, although final details won’t be announced until the July 2007 timeframe. They stress that this is an optional roadmap.
Regarding upgrading, the timing will be flexible and can be incremental so that you can add additional capabilities as you need them.
Other ERP systems would continue to be supported, just as Microsoft Office is sold across a wide variety of systems today.
More about PerformancePoint
PerformancePoint will be a suite of SQL Reporting, FRx, Forecaster, Business Scorecard Manager, and ProClarity. It plays in the same space as Cognos and Hyperion, but at, and I quote, a fraction of the price. Price for PerformancePoint Server is 20 grand, and clients are 195. PerformancePoint is positioned for organizations with greater than 2,500 employees. Are you still with me?
There are going to be gaps in Sierra (the new PerformancePoint product): no Report Manager and no currency in version 1.
My Take
Most FRx users are not higher end PerformancePoint users. If the PerformancePoint news is upsetting, hang on, stay with your product and let’s see what additional details the future brings. You don’t have to go anywhere. For other users, as long as you don’t have currency issues or report manager issues, take a look at the new version when it comes out in a year (or hopefully less).
And my understanding is that FRx will continue to be supported for GLs other than MBS (like Sage and Epicor to name just a couple), and that PerformancePoint will also be supported for non-MBS GLs.
It’s still very early. I’ll post more details as I hear them! Off to the social hours….
(Note on 3/18/07: see next post for further information and clarification from Microsoft.)
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