Microsoft Is Exemplary and a Leader in Data Platforms Value Indexes

We are happy to share some insights about Microsoft drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements.

We recently published three Ventana Research 2023 Data Platforms Value Indexes, which evaluate technology vendors and products that provide individual and combined analytic and operational data platform support. At Ventana Research, we continue to believe that, for most use cases, there is a clear choice between analytic and operational data platforms to best meet your organization’s needs. We developed three technology assessment and buyers’ guides to focus on overall data platform requirements as well as specific analytic data platform and operational data platform use cases.

In all of our Value Indexes, we utilize a structured research methodology built on evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria and derived from RFP responses and a vendor selection process for analytics and business intelligence. For each of the Value Indexes, we evaluated Microsoft and other vendors in seven categories: five relevant to the product — Adaptability, Capability, Manageability, Reliability and Usability — and two related to the vendor — TCO/ROI and Validation. To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our market research, including our Benchmark Research on Analytics and Data.

Microsoft is a well-established provider of data platform products thanks to its development of Microsoft SQL Server as well as its investment in the Azure cloud platform. The company’s portfolio of database offerings now includes Azure Synapse Analytics as well as Azure SQL and Microsoft SQL Server.

In the overall Data Platforms Value Index, Microsoft was categorized as an Exemplary Vendor, ranking fourth overall in this Value Index evaluation. It ranked fourth in Product Experience, where it performed best in Reliability. It ranked first in Customer Experience and was a Value Index Leader in TCO/ROI. Its overall performance was impacted by its lower rankings in the Usability and Adaptability categories, which represent 25% of the weighting in the overall Value Index.

Our assessment finds that Microsoft could improve accessibility, which was reflected in its sixth-place Usability ranking. In Capability, where it ranked fourth, it could examine data architect and data engineer functionality.

In the Analytic Data Platforms Value Index, Microsoft was also categorized as an Exemplary Vendor, ranking third overall in this Value Index evaluation. It ranked fourth in Product Experience, where it ranked best in the Reliability and Capability categories. It ranked first in Customer Experience and was a Value Index Leader in the TCO/ROI and Validation categories.

Microsoft was also categorized as an Exemplary Vendor in the Operational Data Platforms Value Index, ranking fourth overall in this Value Index evaluation. It ranked fourth in Product Experience, where it ranked best in the Reliability category. It ranked first in Customer Experience and was a Value Index Leader in the Validation and TCO/ROI categories.

This assessment was based on Microsoft’s data platform products generally available as of September 30, 2022.

Organizations should evaluate their data platform requirements for operational and analytic workloads to ensure the existing products and vendors are meeting their needs. If their current data platforms are not satisfying those requirements, they should consider whether Microsoft can help meet their needs.

This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of data platforms in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Click below to read the individual reports:

Data Platforms Value Index

Analytic Data Platforms Value Index

Operational Data Platforms Value Index