Straight from the horse’s mouth
Had a note from Andy Kamlet from upper management in FRx, and he outlines this information and clarification regarding my last post on the recent announcements regarding the FRx future:
“Sierra will be the successor product offering for Microsoft FRx. And yes, it is ‘Microsoft FRx 7.0.’ Essentially, we are renaming it under the PerformancePoint name, to indicate to the market that it is under the PerformancePoint name that we will be investing our development and marketing efforts over the long term. Like FRx, it will be a financial report writer that will link to a wide variety of GLs. It will be available to run on a stand-alone basis, while also acting as the financial report writer within PerformancePoint Server.
As you suggest, we will continue to support Microsoft FRx 6.7. You are correct that over the long term, our focus will be on Sierra as the long-term successor for FRx that customers will be able to migrate to.
Saying that product support moves under MBS is not altogether true…Support is moving under a group called Microsoft Global Services in the Customer Services and Support team (CSS) . The group that our entire support group is moving under provides support to the IW (Office) team as well as the MBS teams . We intend to continue supporting all of our customers with the same Denver-based team, regardless of ERP provider. So, it shouldn’t be an issue for our broad customer base or partner network.
What you suggest at the end of your blog is right. While PerformancePoint may meet more of the “enterprise” type customer today, our intent is to add functionality and usability enhancements that will make it attractive to mid-market customers. That will come with future releases of PerformancePoint. As you suggest, stay tuned!”
Thank you Andy!
And Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Leave a Reply