Other improvements launched Tuesday include the software’s ability to handle large matrices, as well as greater chart control and pagination. Data caching has been improved for customers previewing reports. In a related development earlier this week, MicroStrategy
Less than two months after acquiring ActiveViews in order to add ad-hoc reporting to its business intelligence stack,
Microsoft unveiled the first service pack
upgrade for its SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services software.
A key piece of the Redmond, Wash., company’s SQL Server database platform, Reporting Services aims to help business performance by providing
enterprises with graphical reports about the company, its products and
employees.
More than 75,000 developers downloaded Reporting Services since its January 27 launch, said Alex Payne, senior product manager for SQL Server. Since that time, the
company has received enough customer feedback to warrant improvements.
With that feedback, SQL Services SP1 features bug fixes and performance
enhancements. Chief among these are boost to Excel spreadsheet rendering.
Currently, Reporting Services can be piped out in XP and 2003, but Payne
said Microsoft has extended support to Excel 97 and 2000, giving the company
the ability to reach more customers.
“This will be efficient in helping customers go about building reports,” Payne told internetnews.com, noting that Phelps-Dodge, Allianz
Dresdner Asset Management and the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain are currently deploying the upgrades.
SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services SP1 is available for free download from Microsoft’s Web site.
Business intelligence is a hot topic at a time when major players in the space are either building or acquiring reporting software
to round out their platforms. Microsoft is banking on making a name for
itself in the space, where it competes with MicroStrategy, Cognos , Actuate
and others.
released a UNIX-based
version of its 7i platform, called MicroStrategy 7i Universal Edition. The
upgrade is compiled to 32-bit and 64-bit modes from the same code base and
can run on Microsoft Windows, IBM AIX and Sun Solaris.
IDC estimates that approximately 22 percent of the BI market is based on
UNIX, making Mclean, Va.-based MicroStrategy’s UNIX platform a potentially
lucrative offer.
Actuate also said it has finished digesting its purchase
of Nimble Technology from last summer. The San Francisco-based vendor has bundled Nimble’s Enterprise Information Integration
(EII) software into the new Actuate Enterprise Reporting Application
Platform 8 to support the real-time integration of disparate data sources.
SP Upgrade For Microsoft Reporting Services
