First-annual business intelligence conference

Steve Ballmer and Jeff Raikes highlight vision and road map for pervasive business intelligence

Microsoft has announced plans for its first-annual Business Intelligence (BI) Conference.

The event will take place May 9 - 11, 2007, in Seattle at the Washington State Convention and Trade centre.

Microsoft expects approximately 2,000 conference attendees including CEOs, CFOs, IT professionals, partners and financial analysts.

Microsoft established the BI Conference to communicate its vision of truly pervasive business intelligence and to discuss Microsoft's role within the evolving BI market.

The conference will feature technical tracks and sessions, customer and partner presentations, executive keynotes, presentations by industry analysts, customer awards presentation, and an exhibit hall showcasing Microsoft partners.

Combined with evening receptions and other networking opportunities, attendees will learn about customer and partner BI implementations, best practices and successes.

"Business intelligence is no longer a complicated tool set made available only to a small number of advanced users and analysts in an organisation, but rather a set of capabilities for all information workers to enhance decision support and productivity across the enterprise," said Jeff Raikes, Microsoft Business Division president.

"By ensuring strong interoperability between our Microsoft Office and SQL Server product lines and delivering business intelligence in the familiar applications that information workers use every day, Microsoft is poised to transform the industry and make business intelligence ubiquitous in the enterprise".

Executive keynote addresses for the conference include Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, on Wednesday, Ted Kummert, corporate vice president, Data and Storage Platforms Division, on Thursday, and Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer, on Friday.

Two technical tracks are planned for attendees that include a focus on both the BI platform and the BI front-end tools and performance management applications.

These comprehensive tracks will cover the entire Microsoft BI product offering.

A third track for business decision-makers and executives will focus on the business and end-user value of BI.

A fourth and partner-specific track will focus on selling, demonstrating, marketing and in-depth technical training on Microsoft business intelligence.

Finally, Microsoft will offer a customer track that will focus exclusively on customer case studies.

As part of the conference, Microsoft will present top BI customers with its first-ever Microsoft Business Intelligence awards.

The awards will recognise customers for their innovative and enterprise-scale BI solutions built on the Microsoft BI product offering.

Customers and partners may submit their nomination via the submission form on the Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference 2007 Web site starting today.

The deadline to submit entries is April 1, 2007.

Microsoft is also currently accepting nominations for customer case study sessions at the conference.

Those interested should visit the Call for Presentations section of the conference Web site to access the entry form and to submit a session proposal.

Partners are welcome to submit entries on behalf of customers provided the nominated organisation is able to co-present for the proposed case study session.

Nominations are due by 11:59 pm PST on Monday, Feb 5, 2007.

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