Why Microsoft is combining all its data analytics products into Fabric [Video]

Microsoft is combining its existing data warehousing, business intelligence, and data analytics products into a single offering, dubbed Microsoft Fabric, the company announced Tuesday.

Analysts said this could help enterprises combine workloads while reducing IT integration overhead, complexity and costs.

The launch of a unified data analytics platform in the form of Microsoft Fabric can be seen as “riposte” to the massive sprawl of products in an enterprise’s modern data stack, according to Sanjeev Mohan, principal analyst at SanjMo.

“Microsoft realizes that their clients were looking to reduce the integration overhead and complexity. It’s not that the customers won’t spend, but they are looking for better value for their IT investment,” Mohan said, adding that if Fabric can deliver the right outcomes then it could be the “right” strategy for the public cloud service provider.

In addition to reducing IT complexity, Fabric can also help reduce costs, Mohan said.

“An integrated solution should cost less than a collection of best-of-breed specialized solutions. …