Microsoft has formed a partnership with data blending and analytics firm Alteryx Inc. to bolster its Power BI applications.

Alteryx’s solution is capable of accommodating many different kinds of data via a simple drag-and-drop workflow. The platform is designed to cleanse, transform and then enrich data to prepare it for advanced predictive, spatial and statistical analysis.

Thanks to the partnership, Microsoft Power BI application users will now be able to invoke these analytical capabilities directly from their apps. In addition, the companies are to further integration between the Alteryx Analytics platform, and Microsoft’s Azure. SQL Server and Cortana Analytics solutions.

“This direct integration will enable Alteryx users to view the results of their data blending and advanced analytics directly in Power BI, ultimately resulting in beautiful operational dashboards and reports,” wrote James Phillips, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s business intelligence products group, in a blog post. “The simple drag and drop workflow within Alteryx enables data blending and then the application of predictive and spatial analytics for business analysts to create deep analytics that drive actionable, forward looking insights.”

George Mathew, president and COO of Alteryx, told IT Business Edge the goal was to create an analytics ecosystem that spans both companies’ software solutions, inside and outside of the cloud. Eventually, enterprises will be able to “federate their analytics applications across hybrid clouds”, allowing them to exchange data with different instances of Alteryx software whether it’s running in the cloud or on-premise.

One of the most notable benefits is the ability to blend data in-memory, inside an Alteryx application. Alteryx is already able to export and import data in native Microsoft Office formats, and this can be blended together with SQL Server data inside the Alteryx app.

Future releases will also deliver deeper collaboration with Microsoft Azure Machine Learning, Alteryx said.

The move comes just days after Microsoft rival Amazon Web Services launched what could prove to be a strong competitor to PowerBI in the shape of QuickSight. Amazon’s solution is a new business intelligence tool that lives in the AWS cloud and is capable of provide visualizations in under 60 seconds.

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