Microsoft To Open Up Analytics Offering

MBS' FRx Software group is working on a new Integration Designer product that will open up unsupported general ledgers to its FRx analytics application.

The move is being made so users of J.D. Edwards or PeopleSoft applications, or vertical ERP systems, can take advantage of FRx' talents. "We've talked to resellers who support nonsupported GLs, and they want to use FRx with those systems," Andy Kamlet, vice president of marketing for Denver-based FRx told CRN.

The Microsoft tool, slated to ship this fall, will let resellers "see into the GL of Accpac, for example, and map the accounts into our datamart structure, creating a sort of super GL which is then read into SQL Server's Data Transformation Services," he said. DTS is Microsoft's take on extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) technology. Once the data makes it into FRx it will also be accessible, via that software's ExpressLink capability to the FRx Forecaster application as well.

Integration Designer is slated ship this fall and will be discussed at Microsoft's partner conference in New Orleans, Kamlet said. Pricing to resellers will likely be in the $5,000 range as a one-time charge. Integration software they develop with it can then be reused and resold, he said. "This is a great way for FRx resellers to expand their business beyond MBS," he added.

FRx analytics software currently supports general ledgers from Best Software, Epicor, Geac, Mapics, McKesson and MBS. The new offering will also open the door to a wide array of other general ledgers, Kamlet said.

FRx Software was bought by Great Plains Software in 2000. Microsoft bought Great Plains the following year. Great Plains and Navision are now the focal points of Microsoft Business Solutions.

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