On Two Rational Guides for PerformancePoint Server 2007

After The Rational Guide to Microsoft Business Scorecard Manager 2005 was released many people asked "so when's the PPS book coming?". Nick Barclay and I remained decidedly quiet about the idea of another book. It was, in fact, always our intention to write a PerformancePoint book, with the aim of publishing as close to RTM as possible.

Early on in the planning process we found that a single Rational Guide just didn't contain enough pages to cover the product adequately; to remedy this we wrote two books.

We are pleased to announce that the following books are soon to be published via Rational Press:

• The Rational Guide to Monitoring and Analyzing with Microsoft Office to PerformancePoint Server 2007 (available November 2007)
  


• The Rational Guide to Planning with Microsoft Office to PerformancePoint Server 2007 (available December 2007)

Based on the feedback from readers and bloggers, Nick and I have found that the interest in learning the product is massive. Our titles are designed specifically to help you get up to speed quickly with the Monitor - Analyze - Plan feature areas of PerformancePoint.

- Adrian Downes

On Preparing for the MCITP: BI Developer Certification

Kudos to world-reknowned consultant, trainer and blogger Teo Lachev, founder of Prologika and author of Applied Microsoft Analysis Services 2005, on his latest efforts. A new training guide, MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-445): Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence—Implementation and Maintenance is designed to help you prepare for the first of two Microsoft certification exams towards the MCITP: Business Intelligence Developer designation. The guide is now available from Microsoft Press and can be ordered on Amazon.

Although a book like this is certainly long overdue, I expect it to be a huge success-- I happen to know more than a few BI developers and consultants out there eager to pick up this new title. Congratulations to Teo (who provided the SSAS 2005 content) and his co-authors Erik Veerman, Dejan Sarka, and Javier Loria.

- Adrian Downes

On an Objective View of PerformancePoint Server 2007

The Business Application Research Center and OLAP Report have put together an objective report on PerformancePoint Server, which evaluates the product suite across the following criteria:

- Product and Commercial Issues
- Architecture
- Data Access Functionality
- Calculation Functionality
- Reporting Flexibility
- Time Series Intelligence
- Currency Support
- Security and DBMS Issues
- Human Factors
- Application Building Features
- Performance

The 36 page report is available for download (via Microsoft) here. It is well worth the read for those of you currently evaluating the product.

- Adrian Downes