Path Infotech has announced the opening of a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Business Intelligence (BI) solutions in collaboration with Microsoft. The CoE will develop solutions on Microsoft platform and provide end to end solutions in the area of BI and will offer customers a place for technology demonstrations, situation specific proof of concepts, and the ability to see a working setup on Microsoft's BI platform.

In the initial phase, the CoE will develop solutions to cater to new global entrants and mid market companies in the financial services industry. Going forward, the CoE plans to develop solutions that will cater to the needs of large FSI customers and other industry verticals like manufacturing, retails and insurance.

Sudhanshu Jain, chief architect – BI Solutions, Path Infotech, said "We are seeing increasing demand for Microsoft's BI solutions from customers, who cite competitive pricing, ease of use and manageability as some of their key requirements when evaluating options. Through the CoE we hope not only to cater to this market need by providing customised BI solutions, but also will also work towards defining best practices, and creating Industry specific data models."

Path Infotech will develop BI solutions based on Microsoft's SQL Server 2005 and Microsoft Office System, specifically, Microsoft Office's Excel, Excel Services (in the 2007 Office system) and SharePoint Server 2007.

According to Radhesh Balakrishnan, director - Platform Strategy, Microsoft India, "Through a combination of the capabilities of Microsoft SQL Server, Office 2007 system and Path Infotech's proven expertise in seamless transition and solutions deployment, this partnership will help organisations unlock the value of their data, irrespective of the database in use."