I recently had an opportunity to see a demo of Microsoft PowerPivot. I was quite impressed by this tool, especially given that it is a free add-in to Excel 2010. There are numerous competing technologies out there that provide in-memory business intelligence capabilities, but I think this could be a game changer for Microsoft. Specifically, many business users already rely on using Excel to perform data analysis activities, yet usually in a manner whereby the datasets are disconnected from the source of record. PowerPivot pulls a snapshot of the data locally, but can update this snapshot periodically such that models, graphs, calculations, dashboards, etc. can be dynamically updated over time and support analysis of very large datasets without placing persistent load on a production database server. The other compelling offering is the same technology for SharePoint allow for the ability to distribute the analysis in a dashboard format to other users in your organization.

To learn more about Microsoft PowerPivot visit http://www.powerpivot.com

If you are already on Office 2010 it is a free add-in, so give it try.

Gary Hoke