Far be it from us to ever break official protocol and the guidelines related to how we report our results from any of the Gartner Magic Quadrants in which we compete.  We totally respect their process, and as you can see from both our press release yesterday, as well as the related blog post, we're very careful to only talk about our position, and our success.

But Mary Hayes Weier of Information Week, however, has nicely broken the news today and let everyone in on the big secret--that Microsoft was not just "in" the leaders quadrant, but actually "ahead" of many of the traditional BI vendors in the latest rating on "ability to execute." 

The money quote (among many others to choose from) that I particularly enjoyed (emphasis mine): 

"In its report, written by James Richardson and three other Gartner analysts, the firm cites the attractiveness of Microsoft's integrated Office suite, its PerformancePoint Server released last year, and SQL Server to businesses standardized on Microsoft platforms. "The bundling and pricing of its BI products makes [Microsoft] an economically attractive offering that will be considered by many organizations," the analysts wrote, adding that Microsoft's large development community will further the platform."

Read the entire article here.

And as Paul Harvey would say, now you know...the rest of the story!