Coming on the back of a string of recent acquisitions, most recently productivity app LiveLoop and email app Accompli (Outlook for iOS), Microsoft has announced the acquisition of mobile business intelligence start-up Datazen Software.

The move reflects CEO Satya Nadella’s strategy to “reinvent productivity”, and bolster Microsoft’s position in the fast-growing BI software market, all in line with the new CEO’s mobile-first, cloud-first vision. Microsoft did not reveal how much the company paid for Datazen.

According to a Datazen blog the goal of the company, whose employees (around 15 anyway) will continue to work with Microsoft, was to create easy-to-use BI tools that get the most out of data, and “to strike the right balance between power and simplicity, while providing a flawless experience on the next generation of devices” (the software is compatible with Windows mobile devices, iOS and Android devices). Datazen also announced that for existing customers the, “entire Datazen product stack – server, publisher, and all mobile clients – will continue to be available in their current form.”

Microsoft already has its own cloud-based BI tool called Power BI, one of the company’s steps into making Big Data relevant to the business consumer in order to create a “data culture” and in the end hopefully increase profits. Like Datazen’s software Power BI analyzes data, answers complex natural-language queries and offers data visualizations. In a blog post Kamal Hathi, Partner Director, Cloud and Enterprise at Microsoft, said that this acquisition will work with Power BI to “complement” it, geared now “for customers who need a mobile BI solution implemented on-premises and optimized for SQL Server.” Datazen is optimized for SQL Server Analysis Services. Over time PowerBI and Datazen will be fully integrated.

Microsoft announced that SQL Server Enterprise Edition customers, version 2008 or later and Software Assurance, can now download the Datazen Server software for free.

Photo credit: Datazen