Busy Web sites produce almost unmanageable amounts of user data. For example, Microsoft's Web site (or, rather, internal group of Web sites) generates almost two billion hits and more than 200GB of clickstream information every day.

Of course, buried in those reams of data is valuable user behaviour information that indicates what the company's visitors are attracted to, and what turns them off.

Realizing that it was a lack of proper data management that kept the company from being able to properly analyse these piles of information, team Microsoft developed Business Internet Analytics. The collection of software, hardware and implementation models is being sold through a specialized group of resellers, and is designed to help Web businesses better understand their clickstream data.

"I think it's definitely a big market," says Rochelle Coleman, SQL server marketing manager with Mississauga, Ont.-based Microsoft Canada Corp. "I think as people take a step into the e-commerce world, just as they took a step into the database world or the direct marketing world, there will be a necessity to step back and try and measure the value of it. "

Coleman says one important aspect of the suite of tools and processes is its ability to help marketing departments figure out which of their banner ads are producing the desired response. "If you compare Internet advertising and people putting banners up all over the place, they really need a way to measure the value because they're very expensive," she says. "We're being told that from a marketing view you really have to have a banner that stands out among the rest. There's a lot of stuff that can be done, and I think that it is very much a growing market."

But the Business Internet Analytics are a nebulous concept at best, not relying on any particular piece of software, hardware or methodology. It's more a suite of possibilities that a Microsoft solution provider will make available to the requesting business.

"It's a set of tools and processes that is mainly software — the hardware component is just having the box that runs the right amount of software essentially," says Coleman. "It really is like a broad-reaching initiative, so there's a set of tools that are going to aid content developers and operations folks in trying to get to the analytics." As such, the solution set won't really be available for off-the-shelf purchase and won't be distributed through the common channel.

"It's going to be going to the solution provider portion of the channel," Coleman says. "It's not something that's going to go through the reseller, it's going to be an initiative that's going to be sent out to a group of business intelligence provider professionals."

A product that has no set implementation boundaries has no set price tag either, she adds. "I've been having a lot of questions in terms of 'what's the pricing around something like that,'" Coleman admits, offering only the statement that, "you could, for a very reasonable price point for someone who is used to purchasing SQL servers as a product, get the kind of analysis they're looking for."

Coleman says that one of the big advantages of going with a Microsoft-based solution for clickstream data management needs is interoperability that the solution provides with other Microsoft products. "I think our competitors are all trying to make sure that they offer value on the e-commerce side, but we're a little bit differentiated because we can use the entire Microsoft platform to integrate our tools into Office or Windows or Exchange," she says.

Henry Morris, vice-president for data warehousing and applications with Framingham Mass.-based International Data Corp., says Microsoft is smart to get into the business analytics market, as it's bound to grow in the near future.

"It's only one facet of analytical investigation, but it's likely to be the fastest growing," he says, adding that analytic engines will soon be seen analysing a much greater range of data, from manufacturers' supplier information to telcos' user information.

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