Maps + business data = Microsoft Single View
Given my role as a full-time Microsoft watcher, there are relatively few Microsoft products and technologies I've never heard at least some mention of. Today, however, I stumbled onto one: Single View.
The Single View Platform (SVP) is one of a number of Microsoft Software+Service technologies the company is slated to show off to CIOs attending the Microsoft U.S. Public Sector CIO Summit in Redmond this week.
Single View (not to be confused with another Microsoft product with a very similar name: SharedView) is a platform that combines a number of existing Microsoft products to create a new solution.
According to a write-up about the Single View session, SVP is designed to provide users with "a single, geographic view of complex information and data sets across multiple roles, locations, and user interfaces."
More from the CIO Summit site:
Single View "can improve agency communication, collaboration, and decision-making to increase the success of essential initiatives. Single View Platform is an example of a solution that puts information in a single geographic context that requires comprehensible visual presentation of data, access to real-time or near real-time information, integration of multiple information sets from disparate sources, sharing information inside and outside the agency, with restricted access controls and interoperability with existing and legacy systems."
The target audience for SVP, from a white paper on Microsoft's Web site, is government agencies and program offices -- preferably those with rather hefty budgets, given the substantial set of prerequisites for running SVP. SVP requires Virtual Earth, SharePoint Server 2007, Exchange Server, Office Communications Server, SQL Server and Windows Server. (If you really want to go data-visualization-crazy across your organization, Windows Mobile can be added to the mix, as well.)
Beyond embedding maps in Web sites, I've never felt as though there was much of an enterprise -- as opposed to consumer -- appeal to Virtual Earth. (I also blame my lack of excitement about Virtual Earth on my relatively map-free existence. I live in a city based on a grid. I don't drive at all here; I take the subway, bus or taxi. Google Maps, Live Search Maps and MapQuest are not in my Top 10, or even 100, sites-most-visited list.)
Back to Single View....It really does seem that more and more roads at Microsoft lead to SharePoint. Microsoft's grand plan of trying to make SharePoint an inextricable part of its own and its customers' product set, is well underway.