Microsoft has announced its acquisition of Datazen, an industry-leading company for mobile business intelligence, KPI and data visualization services for Windows, Android and iOS devices.
The acquisition of Datazen will enhance the focus of Microsoft on mobile data analytics. In addition, the acquisition will accelerate the company's Power BI strategy, which is Microsoft's own business analytics service that is cloud-based.
Microsoft Cloud + Enterprise partner director Kamal Hathi wrote on the Microsoft official blog, where the acquisition announcement was posted, that the technology of Datazen will highly complement the Power BI service. Hathi also expressed excitement with the talented group of people from Datazen coming over to work with Microsoft.
The technology that Microsoft will acquire from Datazen will improve the company's developments on its Power BI, which is geared to assist businesses in creating a culture with their data with a lineup of tools that would allow them to extract as much value as possible from the data that they collect.
The companies of today require easier ways for discovering data insights that can be used for the improvement of their operations. With more people taking mobile devices along with them to work, mobile BI has become an expanding trend.
Datazen has been positioned as a mobile BI program to assist customers that need on-site solutions. Datazen has already signed up enterprise customers from all over the world to use its technology, which has been optimized for the platform of Microsoft and SQL Server Analysis Services.
The announcement of the acquisition also included the news that customers of the SQL Server Enterprise Edition software with at least version 2008 and Software Assurance will be able to download and install the Datazen Server for free. Eligible users can now create visualizations and then interact with collected data through apps developed for mobile devices, which can also be downloaded at no cost from app stores.
Microsoft is planning to integrate the technology to be acquired from Datazen with its Power BI service gradually, as one more hybrid bridge for the cloud investments that enterprise customers are making on their locations.
Miljan Braticevic also wrote on Datazen's blog that the development and evolution of the company's technology and services will continue once it transitions to Microsoft, with new features to be expected from Datazen.
Current customers of Datazen will not have to worry about losing the company's services, as all of Datazen's products, including its publisher, server and all the company's mobile clients, will remain operation through their current forms.
