Microsoft Acquires Datazen to Bring On-premise Mobile BI

Microsoft announced today that it acquired Datazen Software. This is a great news because an on-premise mobile dashboard solution has been a big pain point with Microsoft BI. SharePoint Excel Services and Reporting Services are mobile-friendly but Power View is still Silverlight-based. And, customers have been skeptical about the time it will take for Microsoft to deliver a true mobile-ready on premise solution that complements its cloud-based Power BI.

I haven’t personally used Datazen but its looks very promising especially considering that “In particular, SQL Server customers love Datazen, because it is optimized for SQL Server Analysis Services and the overall Microsoft platform, enabling rich, interactive data visualization and KPIs on all major mobile platforms: Windows, iOS and Android”. And, the price is right: “As of today, SQL Server Enterprise Edition customers with version 2008 or later and Software Assurance are entitled to download the DataZen Server software at no additional cost. This means millions of people around the world will now be able to visualize and interact with data on their mobile devices, using the native mobile apps available at no charge at the respective app stores.”

The Datazen architecture is server-based and installs on Windows Server IIS.