ACADEMIA

Fractal Edge award-winning active data visualization technology showcased by Microsoft's Emerging Business Team as a successful partner helping customers gain a competitive edge. Fractal Edge products are Microsoft Certified and tightly integrated with Microsoft information productivity and business intelligence products. Fractal:Edge, the market leading visualization provider, announced the showcasing of its award winning technology in Microsoft's Innovation Starts Here book. The company was selected by the Emerging Business Team (EBT) for successfully partnering with Microsoft to help customers gain a competitive edge. Fractal:Edge's premier active data visualization products are Microsoft Certified and integrate with, and extend the power of, Microsoft information productivity and business intelligence products. Citigroup Equities Division's Best Execution Consulting Service product provides the case study for Fractal Maps in the Innovation book. Delivering pre- and post-trade analytics to a broad range of institutional clients, the BECS team recognized the need for visualization which went beyond the standard grid and graph approaches. As a result of the inclusion of Fractal Maps, according to Head of Client Facing Products, Stavros Kokkoris, "now relevant information is highlighted and accessed more quickly by our users." Fractal:Edge's patented Fractal Mapping technique, with its distinctive 'circles-in-circles' approach, enables people to spot the key patterns and outliers within a data set much more rapidly -- giving a crucial edge in time taken to act. Leveraging the ability of fractals to show multiple dimensions in one image and providing powerful zooming features, interaction with data becomes much more intuitive and revealing. The Fractal:Edge Enterprise Product Suite provides the capability to design, configure and disseminate Fractal Maps which are easily integrated into Microsoft SharePoint Portals, provide a compelling visual extension to SQL Server 2005 Reporting and Analysis Services solutions, add a new interactive dimension to Excel 2007, and can be incorporated into any existing business applications in a native Windows or .NET environment using Visual Studio. "It is very important for us to provide Fractal Map Active Data Visualization capabilities to the millions of Excel users with a low cost solution, and to address the industrial strength of Microsoft's Business Intelligence product stack," said Gervase Clifton-Bligh, Fractal:Edge's VP, Product Strategy & Development. "We have worked closely with Microsoft product teams to maximize integration with their existing and latest products and are pleased that the Emerging Business Team chose us to be included in their Innovation Starts Here booklet." The Microsoft EBT works with venture capitalists (VCs) and start-up companies worldwide to enable innovation and accelerate the software ecosystem. The Microsoft EBT mission is to identify and facilitate opportunity for start-ups and VCs, acting as the single point of contact and accountability to Microsoft. Since its inception in 1999, the EBT has helped connect thousands of start-up companies with technical assistance, sales and marketing opportunities, venture capital support and other assets to give them a competitive edge. The Microsoft Innovation Book can be viewed in soft copy form through its Web site.