Microsoft has finally decided what to do with PerformancePoint Planning
A while back Microsoft created quite a stir in the BI scene when they announced that they would stop further development of PerformancePoint Server 2007. At the time I was studying for the exam and, as you can imagine, was pretty pissed off (and stopped any further preparations for the exam immediately). The analytics part was swiftly moved to SharePoint and what was to become of the Planning part was unknown, until now.
Microsoft is pleased to make available the Financial Planning Accelerator (FPA). The FPA is source code and project files derived from the PerformancePoint Server 2007 Planning module. Based on requests from customers and partners, we are making this code available on a no-cost, individual license.
This is unsupported source code that customers and partners can use to support or change PerformancePoint Server Planning functionality. Derived object code files can be distributed to end users with Microsoft SharePoint Server Enterprise Client Access Licenses. To obtain access to the FPA a license agreement between Microsoft and the customer or partner is required. After that agreement is in place, download instructions will be made available.
When PerformancePoint Server 2007 ceased to exist there were speculations (and requests) that the source code was to be made open source, which, as you can read, is not the case. It does mean, however, that the partners who were hit hardest by the decision to kill off PerformancePoint Planning can now request the source code, modify it and sell it on to their customers. As long as those customers have got the right Sharepoint licence they can use the software without a problem.