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Anatomy of the Deal: Nexvue and Microsoft OEM Agreement
Part of our ongoing series offering an inside look at prominent deals in the Microsoft partner community.
- By Lee Pender
- April 14, 2006
Microsoft Corp.- Nexvue Analytics OEM Deal: March 2006
The Partner
NexVue Analytics Corp., a 21-person Microsoft Gold Certified Partner based in
Stamford, Conn. NexVue develops BIO (Business Information Optimization), an
analytics application for small and midsize companies that provides easy visibility
into Microsoft Office and Dynamics SL data and other critical company and industry
data.
The Deal
In March, NexVue and Microsoft announced an OEM deal creating a new Microsoft
product, BIO for Microsoft Dynamics SL. Formerly known as Microsoft Business
Solutions-Solomon, Dynamics SL is part of Microsoft’s recently renamed
Dynamics line of enterprise resource planning applications. The entry-level
version of BIO for Microsoft Dynamics SL, scheduled for release in June, will
cost $3,600 for a two-user license.
The Terms
The parties did not release terms of the deal.
The Market
This deal touches two markets. First, there’s the ERP market for Dynamics
dominated on the high end by SAP AG and Oracle Corp., into which Microsoft hopes
to make inroads with smaller companies. In addition, there’s the business
intelligence market for BIO, a highly competitive sector that includes stars
such as Ottawa-based Cognos Inc. and Business Objects SA, based in Levallois-Perret,
France and San Jose, Calif. The BI industry maintained momentum through the
technology recession of the early part of this decade, and analyst firm Gartner
Inc. predicts that the market will grow at a yearly rate of 7.3 percent between
2004 and 2009, at which point it will reach $3 billion. BIO and products like
it cut through SQL code, giving nontechnical users easy access to real-time
reports on key metrics within a company or industry without requiring IT people
to intervene in the report-creation process.
Microsoft made further inroads into BI in April, when the company announced
that it had agreed to buy ProClarity Corp., a Boise, Idaho-based BI vendor.
How Partners and Users Will Benefit
The addition of low-level, inexpensive business analytics to Dynamics SL will
give Microsoft partners the opportunity to provide midsize companies with the
kind of tool usually reserved for larger enterprises, according to NexVue founder
and President Dan Schwartz. Midsize companies will have BI functionality without
having to make massive investments.
“This is a proof point that we can take a very complex and expensive
process bring it down so that for middle-market companies it becomes a less-risky
endeavor,” he says.
How NexVue Will Benefit
Aside from financial considerations, Schwartz says, this deal provides evidence
for the cost-effectiveness and usefulness of his company’s application.
He says NexVue hopes to use the deal as a springboard to be the first BI vendor
to successfully bring analytics applications into the mid-market.
How Microsoft Will Benefit
Microsoft saw a need for business analytics in Dynamics SL, Schwartz says. Furthermore,
technology focused on midsize companies fits well with Microsoft’s target
of bringing ERP to companies outside the Global 2000, says Eric de Jager, director
of product management for Solomon in theMicrosoft Business Solutions division.
“We have our market staked out, and it’s going to be hard for (competitors)
to come down into it,” de Jager says.
About the Author
Lee Pender is Redmond Channel Partner magazine's senior editor. You can reach him at [email protected].