Do you want your employees to make great, insightful, and effective business decisions all by themselves without overloading the IT department with endless requests for even more reports and questionable direct access to your secure database servers? Would you like to be in control of the tools users use to help themselves to your organizational intelligence? Should the fruit of their work empower their entire teams providing accurate and timely knowledge? In short: are you ready for the pivotal change to the way we analyse information that will change every business for the decade to come like Excel has done a decade ago?
Microsoft has just released a new wave of incredibly innovative and unmatched analytical tools centred around PowerPivot and SQL Server 2008 R2, SharePoint 2010, and Office 2010. It has never been possible to so effortlessly extract meaning from hundreds of millions of rows of data all from within Excel. It has never been as easy to create PerformancePoint KPIs, scorecards, and dashboards, or to collaboratively edit Excel documents in several types of browsers. Hardly any other software vendor offers you a way to create rich, OLAP-style analytical expressions for columnar data like Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) do. And almost no one else enables you to manage self-service business intelligence using comprehensive and visually attractive tools like the server activity bubble charts. Building on the long-standing experience of SQL Analysis Services and SharePoint, the newest technologies scale wonderfully well to meet the needs of even the biggest data centres you may run.
This TechEd 2010 pre-conference seminar gives you a truly unique one-day opportunity to get up-to-speed on all of this and on more, like Master Data Services or magic-like Data Mining technologies of SQL Server 2008 R2. We will even manage to refresh your fundamental knowledge of some of the basic concepts of BI if you have been away from it for a while. Best of all, we will spend most of our time showing you all the new technologies in a series of compelling 26 product demos grouped into 13 completely-live demo blocks while using PowerPoint slides only when it makes sense, like when discussing key BI concepts.
The new Microsoft Business Intelligence Indexing Connector allows users to have a dedicated report tab where they can find the reports they are looking for, use refiners to further narrow their searches, and even get a preview of the report before opening it in the browser or client. This is part of the capabilities we have been discussing when we say that SharePoint unites both structured and unstructured information in to a single collaborative experience helping users access the information they need to make the right business decisions.
Get the components for the Microsoft Business Intelligence Indexing Connector from the SharePoint Insights blog.
If you didn't get a chance to watch this mornings launch keynote, check it out here: www.the2010event.com
Stephen Elop started the keynote with a Forrester study that talks about the total time and cost savings that a sample company might gain from implementing Office 2010 and Sharepoint 2010. The study took into account the use of Excel with PowerPivot for data analysis and sharing KPIs using dashboards and scorecards, and includes a section devoted to cost savings from deploying BI.
Economic Impact Excerpts for Microsoft Business Intelligence:
Page 19 – “Improved reporting - incorporating, analyzing, and sharing of data. By using SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010, particularly the tools available in Excel and PowerPivot, some of the customers interviewed noted that heavy BI-users within their organizations could reduce the time it took to prepare reports. One BI analyst interviewed noted, ―Productivity reports used to take me 8 to 9 hours to complete. Now with tools like PowerPivot, I can build the initial report in 1 to 2 hours. Then even more savings come into play because PowerPivot pulls from live data sources, automatically making adjustments that were time consuming in the past.‖ Another customer estimated that with implementing SharePoint 2010, using PowerPivot with pre-prepared tables and ―one point of entry‖ for BI, their users could reduce report production time and increase productivity for these users by an hour a day.”
Page 22―”The composite organization has also reduced BI architect demand of 4,000 hours annually by 50% at a cost of $200 an hour. Total cost avoidance savings for the organization is $1,479,300 over three years.”
Here’s a collection of a few short preview videos for Microsoft BI within the Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 launch. You can get more information about the launch here. Watch for more info for Microsoft BI in the weeks to come.
On April 21, 2010 Microsoft announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of SQL Server 2008 R2, offering customers a “complete approach” to managing their information assets. SQL Server 2008 R2 delivers on our Information Platform vision and is the foundation of the Microsoft Business Intelligence offering. This highly anticipated release introduces exciting new capabilities such as Managed Self-Service BI, Master Data Management, and Parallel Data Warehousing and introduces record setting performance and scale at a low TCO. Increasing scale and decreasing TCO are critical factors to delivering on our vision of making BI truly pervasive and available to more people throughout the organization. Deeply integrating with the upcoming release of Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint Server 2010 uniquely enables Microsoft to empower people through familiar tools to access the critical business information they need to make faster, smarter, more relevant business decisions. To see what’s new in SQL Server 2008 R2 visit www.sqlserverlaunch.com
We’ve had some great press including a write-up for InformationWeek, Bob Evans writes, “The opportunity is certainly right for the ‘democratization of BI’… few if any companies have shown the ability to drive robust applications to scale the way Microsoft has with Office and other products, and now the company says it's launching a BI initiative that'll blend the familiarity of Excel with the power of SQL Server.”
Also stay tuned in the coming weeks for more Microsoft BI news with the launch of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Save the date on May 12, 2010 and watch Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division announce the launch of Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Make sure to check out all the upcoming BI news at the Microsoft BI conference in June, http://www.msbiconference.com/
We
are pleased to be acknowledged by Gartner as a Leader in both the Business
Intelligence Platforms Magic Quadrant and the Data Warehouse Database
Management Systems Magic Quadrant for the third year in a row.
We are happy to see this type of
validation in our approach and strength of our technologies from the analyst
community. Moreover, we are pleased that the high level of satisfaction within
our existing Microsoft Business Intelligence customer community is called out
as influential. Our rankings on these two reports reflect, in part, the
quality and quantity of positive customer feedback Microsoft has received in
the customer survey portion of the evaluations. Focus on familiar, intuitive
user experiences delivered via a high quality, robust product families
customers already know and use today is key to making BI truly pervasive.
Microsoft
Business Intelligence delivers on the vision of “Pervasive Insight” by
re-defining who the average BI user is. By providing end user BI capabilities
through familiar Microsoft Office experiences such as SharePoint & Excel,
we empower an entirely new segment of business users to build and consume rich
BI solutions as part of their everyday work. Delivering the server-side capabilities
to enable this via SharePoint Server and SQL Server gives IT a common, quality
data foundation, feature rich collaborative decision making environment, and
empowers IT oversight and insight into what solutions are being built and who
is using them.
Building
on this success, we are excited to release our next wave of the Microsoft
Business Intelligence solution later this year. Microsoft Office 2010,
SharePoint 2010, and SQL Server 2008 R2 further evidence our commitment making
BI available to every organization and every user by introducing exciting new
innovations such as:
Managed self-service business intelligence: empowering a new class of
business users to build and share powerful BI solutions while still enabling IT
to monitor and manage end-user generated BI solutions through SQL Server
PowerPivot for Excel, and Report Builder 3.0. Check out http://www.microsoft.com/bi
to learn more!
Deeper integration with SharePoint Server: expanding traditional BI
scenarios with all the content and social capabilities available in SharePoint
to provide richer collaborative experiences across business communities and
organizations gain better insight and enable more informed decision making at
all levels.
A trusted and scalable platform: supporting data
consistency across heterogeneous business systems through Master Data Services,
enabling high-scale complex event stream processing through StreamInsight and
supporting scale-up scenarios for the largest available hardware (up to 256
logical processors).
SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse (formerly Project
code-named “Madison”) extending Microsoft’s leadership in data warehousing by
offering massive scalability for the 100+ terabyte data warehouse at low total
cost of ownership.
Gartner
predicts that the BI Platforms market will remain one of the fastest growing
software markets in large part because today’s competitive business climate
depends on the optimization of strategy and execution. Better insight and
oversight can be the difference maker between surviving and thriving. We keep
listening to our customers and working hard to help them put better business
intelligence in the hands of more decision makers at all levels of their
organization. It’s this focus on users and making BI accessible to everyone
that we believe differentiates Microsoft BI. Enabling everyone to make faster,
more relevant decisions is our mission. We appreciate the continued recognition
of the impact of our software in these reports. Above all, we value our
customers voice in helping shape and validate this approach.
Exciting news on the PowerPivot front - Friday we launched the Excelerators Quiz and the Alpha Geek Challenge. Go now to the sites below and take the quiz to see if you’re anywhere near as good as Donald Farmer! Remember to post your results on Facebook and Twitter or even challenge a friend! Also spread the word to all your Alpha Geek pals to participate in our challenges for some great prizes! We’ve been working hard to get these sites ready, and we want to hit the ground running. Go check it out for yourself, and have fun! Please send this to your friends, colleagues, and family members! You can win awesome prizes -- a $250 shopping spree to the Microsoft store, an all-expense paid trip to the 2010 BI Conference in New Orleans and a 'hot date' with Donald Farmer!!!
The Office 2010 launch is just around the corner and Excel 2010 is coming with a ton of new BI features. Check out a few new features in these videos (the sweet music beats in the videos are not included in the software).
Then of course there is PowerPivot, check out this new sales forecasting demo with PowerPivot and SharePoint 2010:
Finally, what we’ve all been waiting for, today the entire next wave of Microsoft Business Intelligence is available in Beta. Grab yourself a copy of Microsoft Office 2010 beta, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 beta, and SQL Server 2008 R2 CTP3 and try out the exciting new BI capabilities from Microsoft. Test out the following and let us know what you think:
·The new Business Intelligence capabilities in Excel 2010. Connect to an Analysis Services cube and try the new Slicers, Sparklines, Custom Sets, Write-back and more…
·Explore the power of PowerPivot for Excel and PowerPivot for SharePoint add-ins and pull together data from across your organization or from outside the firewall, build analytic reports and share them with colleagues through SharePoint. If you’re an IT Pro don’t forget to check out the PowerPivot dashboards that give you visibility and insight into what PowerPivot applications are being built across your organization. (I will embed this video). To learn more, Follow us on www.twitter.com/powerpivot or become a Fan on www.facebook.com/powerpivot
·Explore what SharePoint Server 2010 has to offer with PerformancePoint Services, Visio Services, and Excel Services and explore how the SharePoint platform makes the BI experience much more collaborative through tags, notes, wiki’s, etc…
Take a look at the new BI capabilities available with SQL Server with Master Data Services, the new Report Builder, and more…
This marks a major milestone in our quest to realize broader adoption and value for Business Intelligence for our customers and we’re excited to announce this unified beta release. Check out the betas here: Office 2010 and PowerPivot andSharePoint Server 2010
Bringing Business Intelligence into the Mainstream
This week at PASS 2009, Microsoft delivers on a commitment to enabling pervasive delivery of business intelligence throughout the organization. In Wednesday's keynote, Tom Casey, GM for SQL Server Business Intelligence, called out that delivering on this vision will require Microsoft bringing BI out of the realm of specialization - specialized tools and specialized skill sets - and into mainstream products that business users already know and love today.
The Microsoft Business Intelligence platform delivers on the vision of “Pervasive Insight” by re-defining who the average BI user is. By providing business users BI capabilities through familiar Microsoft Office tools such as SharePoint & Excel, we empower an entirely new segment of business users to build and consume rich BI solutions as part of their day to day tasks and activities, while enabling IT with oversight and insight into what solutions are being built.
SQL Server 2008 R2, as the next generation information platform, drives this vision forward by introducing exciting new innovations, such as:
Managed self-service business intelligence: empowering a new class of business users to build and share powerful BI solutions while still enabling IT to monitor and manage end-user generated BI solutions through SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel, and Report Builder 3.0.
A trusted and scalable platform: supporting data consistency across heterogeneous systems through Master Data Services, enabling high-scale complex event stream processing through StreamInsight and supporting scale-up scenarios for the largest available hardware (up to 256 logical processors).
SQL Server 2008 R2 Parallel Data Warehouse (formerly Project code-named “Madison”) extends Microsoft’s leadership in data warehousing by offering massive scalability for the 100+ terabyte data warehouse at low total cost of ownership.
Overall, we had a GREAT week at the Sharepoint Conference in Las Vegas! It has been encouraging to see the amount of enthusiasm and pent-up demand for BI. Also, lots of activity on Facebook, Twitter, and various blogging channels about our newest announcement of PowerPivot (formerly Project "Gemini). Self-Service Business Intelligence was the topic of the hour...
Keynotes and Sessions
-Steve Ballmer’s keynote talked about Insights/BI, and showed BI in his video.
-Jeff Teper’s keynote covered Insights and unveiled PowerPivot. We showed the PowerPivot demo that showed sorting through 100 million rows.
-Tom Casey’s session on “Microsoft Business Intelligence Vision and Strategy” had about 1,200 attendees and standing room only. Tom dived deeper into our vision and capabilities, and showed a deeper demo of our stack.
BI Booth
The BI Booth enjoyed non-stop traffic, and during key times, it was packed! Most people coming to the booth want to see PowerPivot in action, so our PowerPivot stations have been very busy. MS IT’s Consolidated Business Intelligence has also received good traffic. The BI Racer is driving a lot of interest and admiring reviews, and people are saying that we have the “coolest booth at the show”.
As you may know, Microsoft has decided to make the BI Conference into a biennial event, with the next conference in 2010. For 2009, we are excited to team with the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) to expand the BI tracks at PASS Summit 2009 and help deliver the content that BI architects, developers, and administrators need to get the most value from their Microsoft SQL Server and BI-based solutions.
Four top Microsoft SQL Server executives will take center stage in a series of can’t-miss keynote addresses at the Professional Association for SQL Server’s PASS Summit Unite 2009 conference, Nov. 2-5.Bob Muglia, president of Microsoft’s Server and Tools Business (STB), and Ted Kummert, senior vice president of the Business Platform Division, will kick off the conference with an inside look at the future of Microsoft’s data platform. In addition, General Manager for SQL Server Business Intelligence Tom Casey and Technical Fellow David J. DeWitt of the Data and Storage Platform Division return to PASS Summit by popular demand to deliver keynotes on the next generation of BI and the latest innovations from the Jim Gray Systems Lab.
In the opening keynote on Nov. 3, Muglia will outline Microsoft’s key technical investments across the datacenter and cloud, exploring how they support the evolving role of database professionals around the world. Kummert will then deep-dive into the upcoming release of SQL Server 2008 R2, which delivers on Microsoft’s vision of enabling data platform customers to be more efficient through integrated tools. Casey will showcase real-life scenarios from customers using the latest BI advances within the data platform to make better business decisions. And DeWitt will take the stage on Nov. 5 to share cutting-edge developments from the Jim Gray Systems Lab.
The Microsoft BI team will be at PASS Summit 2009 in full force, sharing best practices and the latest information about BI technologies. We’re excited about our many sessions, including the always-popular BI Power Hour; a demo-intensive introduction to Reporting Services 2008 R2 and major new innovations to Report Builder 3.0; what’s new in Microsoft Office Excel for BI and Project Gemini for enterprise self-service analysis; and much more. The full agenda includes 2 tracks dedicated to BI, including 90-minute, in-depth Spotlight sessions and a full roster of Program sessions.
To learn more about PASS Summit Unite 2009 and to register, visit the website at http://summit2009.sqlpass.org. Take $100 off with the code MSCOM3D (no expiration date)
New Orleans was host to the Microsoft World Wide Partner Conference 2009 this week. With over 8,000 in attendance the WPC is a yearly opportunity for MS partners to connect with each other and gain insight into Microsoft’s strategy and direction. I was able to attend the conference and wanted to provide a roundup for the exposure around Business Intelligence and some of the announcements that were made.
First off, be sure to check out the conference keynotes sessions at www.digitalwpc.com all of the keynotes I mention as highlights below can be found there and I’m working on getting snippets to post to the blog in future.
Ballmer gives a shout out to BI
Steve Ballmer delivered an energy filled keynote on day 2, here’s a link to a recent article where he highlights Business Intelligence: Business intelligence, search and portals remain keys to Microsoft's business because these technologies have only scratched the surface in terms of the efficiencies they'll offer to businesses, Ballmer said. In fact, Ballmer said the "most frustrating question" he gets from CEOs has to do with the difficulty of finding the information necessary to make business-related decisions. Read the article
Business Intelligence and Office 2010
There has already been a lot of buzz around Office 2010, and from a BI perspective things are starting to get a lot more interesting. At WPC more analysis and insight capabilities in Excel 2010 were shown in the main stage demo by Stephen Elop (president of the Microsoft Business Division). WPC is all about the opportunity for partners and showcasing the investments Microsoft is making so they can make their bets and prioritize their business opportunities. Watch this video interview of Stephen Elop shot at WPC which speaks to the Office 2010 news announcements and the opportunity for our partners and the “big bets” that MBD will be making this upcoming year. The video is posted on the WPC virtual press room and can be viewed here
Self Service BI demo creates tons of buzz
We had an exciting keynote and demo delivered by Bob Muglia (president of the Server and Tools Division) featuring project Gemini, the in-memory Excel add-in to analyze massive amounts of data, this will be available to Office 2010 customers as an add-in for Excel 2010. It was great to watch the audience of over 8,000 at the New Orleans convention center crank the tweet-o-meter to the max as Bob gave the self service BI demo. Check out some of the tweets that came back about Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, and the new self service BI capabilities to come:
·SharePoint 2010 Self-Service Business Intelligence is amazing.
·100m rows in excel - I can remember when IV8192 was the end of the flat world before you fell off
·100 Million rows of data demo on laptop in Excel 2010 by Bob Muglia Nice. (wow!)
·keynote demo about BI changes in the future -- extending BI to end-users via Excel 2010 and SQL 2008!!!
·fun to hear bob muglia talk about BI; he has so much passion for this area
·whoa. i would like to see google apps load 100 million rows in their spreadsheet!
·100 million rows? HOLY CRAP!
·Great Gemini demo by an exec (Muglia). Self-service BI, indeed.
·Excel 64 bit client is going to be THE BI client tool. 100 million rows with fast response even on a laptop.
·SharePoint 2010 Self-Service Business Intelligence is TERRIFIC :)
·end users redefine BI with excel + sql
·100 million rows of data in Excel on a laptop! In memory! That's what Office 2010 & SQL R2 are about.
·Excel 64 bit client is going to be THE BI client tool. 100 million rows with fast response even on a laptop.
·I was actually impressed with 100 millions rows in Excel 2010 on a laptop, sorting and filtering in real time
·Self-service BI capabilities of Excel 2010 are really exciting. I predict this and several other features will drive migration.
·Funny - they're referring to Excel "applications". So Excel really is the new Access.
·Looks like there will be some easy to use BI tool in the next version of Excel for Office 2010 next year.
·Awesome peek at Excel 2010 at #WPC09! Users can build reports out of millions of rows of data w/ease in secs! ^CT
·new Excel self service BI with slicer means less need for OLAP and constant requests to DBAs for new reports
·AWESOME demo showing Excel 2010 publishing direct to web. Allows end users to create their own online reports. Cant wait to use this!
·Oh, Nice! 'Slicers' in the new Excel 2010 - Office getting even more powerful! 100 million rows of data? WOW!
·I think I just fell in love with Excel 2010
·Muglia is demonstrating Excel 10 64-bit: 100 milion rows on a laptop with pretty fast response.
·MS demo with 100M rows of data in Excel from SQL is cool, but if your report has 100m rows u may have the wrong query.
·Well, that was sweet. Excel 2010 with over a million rows of data on a laptop, just scrolling up and down, no prob.
·Looks like there will be some easy to use business intelligence tool in the next version of Excel for Office 2010 next year.
·BI. Enabling end users to work with business data. 100 mi rows on a laptop! Office 2010 excel.
·Excel demo with 100000000 rows on laptop wow
·Microsoft Excel 2010 looks pretty cool.
·Still trying to educate users that Excel is THE BI client app at #WPC09 Haven't we known this for a while? Cool demo is using Excel 2010
·Slicers and sparklines in Excel 2010 are bringing BI to everyone. Can't wait for Office 2010!
·Excel 2010 sounds amazing
·Excel 2010 provides BI for the masses by making it easy to build your own charts/graphs on and offline
Finally, thanks to everyone for stopping by the Business Productivity and Application Platform booths at the showcase expo area, it was great to meet and connect with an amazing group of partners from around the world who are interested in the opportunity around Microsoft BI. Stay connected with the blog and twitter for more updates as we move closer to the technology preview for SQL Server 2008 R2 and the beta announcements for Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010.
Hi everyone, I haven't made an appearance on these pages in some time, preferring to let folks like Nic and Ben have all the glory of delivering the news on all the cool things that are happening around Microsoft BI. But as they're both likely still recovering from their "Who can down the most Hurricane's in 10 minutes" contest I hear was raging at Pat O'Brien's last night at the Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans, I thought I'd step in and deliver some nice news.
We've done a lot of work with our friends at Panorama Software over the course of the last six months or so to put together a great story for our joint customers around an end-to-end BI solution that takes advantage of their capabilities in advanced analytics, and our BI solution as delivered through Office, SharePoint, and SQL Server. This has involved working with both their senior leadership team, as well as their engineers on ways that we can fashion a clear GTM strategy together, while allowing Panorama the ability to capitalize on the super cool offerings coming up in Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, and SQL Server 2008 R2, particually focused on Project Gemini.
I'm happy to link to a great press release that Panorama issued yesterday afternoon focusing on our efforts and their work to be a strong partner on the Microsoft BI platform. Although we certainly compete with them in certain parts of our offering (as is the case with all our ISV partners, and is a fact of life in this marketplace), this release is proof positive that our BI strategy change is having the desired impact on the marketplace, and allowing our partners to leverage our BI capabilities to deliver their BI capabilities to our joint customers.
Look for more of these types of partnerships and announcements in the coming months leading up to the Office 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2 launches, we're inundated with requests by former competitors and other BI vendors to work with us now to deliver the best solution to our customers. We're proud to work with Panorama and all our BI partners on this effort!
If you have paid any attention to Microsoft in the BI space in the past few months you have likely heard a lot about PerformancePoint. Based on requests from customers and partners, Microsoft will make available the source code and project files derived from the PerformancePoint Server 2007 Planning module. This packaged source code will be called the Financial Planning Accelerator (FPA). The source code will be made available on a no-cost, individual license agreement and can be used to support or change PerformancePoint Server Planning functionality.
What does this mean for you?
This is a great opportunity for customers and partners interested in using the planning source code to extend existing PPS planning applications or look at building new planning applications. From working with customers in the planning space over the past 3-4 years we have seen a wide scope of use cases for the planning component of PPS, including those that go beyond traditional aspects of financial planning and budgeting and into areas of supply chain performance, human resources, and sales forecasting. By making the code available we are hoping to provide our customers and partners the flexibility to develop planning solutions that make sense for their organizations.
How does the licensing work?
Here are some additional licensing details; Object code files can be distributed to end-users with Microsoft SharePoint Server Enterprise Client Access Licenses (E-CAL).End-user customers are required to have Office SharePoint 2007 E-CAL or the “E-CAL Suite.”Any binaries created from the source files become company’s derivative works and are not supported by Microsoft.
How can you get the Financial Planning Accelerator?
To obtain access to the Financial Planning Accelerator a license agreement between Microsoft and the customer or partner is required. After that agreement is in place, download instructions will be made available. Please e-mail fpasupp@microsoft.com to request the agreement.
For more background on the recent changes to PerformancePoint and how SharePoint customers can now take advantage of the PerformancePoint dashboard and scorecard capabilities today, check out this page.
The Spotlight sessions are 90-minute, in-depth sessions across all four of the PASS Summit tracks, with excellent presentations scheduled for BI. To learn more about the PASS Summit event, visit the website at www.PASSsummit.com. You can also follow them on Twitter at www.twitter.com/sqlpass.
I'm really excited about the upcoming PASS Summit event, and hope to see you all there! We're busy working on our session abstracts and will post them as soon as they're finalized!
