APPLICATIONS

REDMOND, Wash. -- Microsoft Corp. today announced the release of two new templates for the Microsoft(R) SQL Server(TM) Accelerator for Business Intelligence (Accelerator for BI). The Accelerator for BI is a rapid application development tool that automates the process of building the infrastructure of an analytical application. Created so partners can quickly and more easily build customized BI solutions to meet their customers' needs, the Accelerator for BI lowers the barrier to entry for developing analytical applications, making business intelligence more accessible to customers. The two new templates add support for Financial Services and Manufacturing to the Accelerator for BI. Retail and Sales & Marketing templates have been available since May. "The SQL Server Accelerator for Business Intelligence speeds the deployment of BI solutions, enabling us to help our customers work smarter," said Brian Donaldson, president and CTO of Quadrus Development Inc., a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. "Our customers have been pleased with the success of implementations built on the current templates. The new Financial Services and Manufacturing templates will expand on our abilities and allow us to extend the reach of our services." The Financial Services template provides a predefined schema, key performance indicators and a model for gathering requirements to build analytical applications for the banking industry. It helps banks understand their customers' varying needs and the factors that drive profitability. Some of the key analyses provided by this model are sales channel effectiveness, customers' profitability measurement and companywide financial analysis. The Manufacturing template models shop floor operational analysis, helping users evaluate the cause of high labor costs, find opportunities to reduce production costs and identify when it is necessary to service equipment. The Accelerator for BI includes a community and resources based on SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services that provides support, tools and best practices for building business intelligence applications. It enables partners to focus on their core competencies in developing and integrating custom analytic solutions, thus allowing their customers to focus on business needs. The custom analytics builder lets partners add their own intellectual property and services to provide added-value solutions to their customers. By helping partners develop and deploy business intelligence applications more quickly and easily, Microsoft is delivering on its vision to make business intelligence more pervasive and more accessible to everyone.