Introducing PowerPivot for Excel

PowerPivot (formerly known as "Project Gemini") is an innovative data analysis technology that redefines how organizations apply and succeed with BI. IT managers can deliver corporate BI solutions and also establish a managed BI collaboration environment that gives business users the power to get the answers they need to make decisions in the familiar Excel environment. This facilitates information sharing and collaboration on user-generated BI solutions, and enables the IT department to manage user-generated BI solutions with increased operational efficiency.

• Empower your users: On the desktop side, PowerPivot for Excel 2010 delivers unmatched computational power and advanced analysis features such as Data Analysis Expressions (DAX), with the familiarity of Excel to accelerate user adoption. Users can hit the ground running and transform enormous quantities of data from virtually any source with incredible speed into meaningful business information.

• Facilitate sharing and collaboration: On the server side, PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010 provides a collaboration foundation so users can easily share their analysis models thru Excel Services in PowerPivot galleries, accessible virtually anytime and from any location. Users can enjoy SharePoint's attractive user interface-browsing at its best-and the same performance and features as the Excel client.

• Increase IT efficiency: On the operational side, SQL Server PowerPivot enables organizations to meet the challenges of self-service BI with increased efficiency. IT departments can use PowerPivot Management Dashboard to discover mission-critical workbook applications and keep an eye on performance, availability, and quality of service. Automatic data refreshing in SharePoint ensures the data remains consistent with the underlying data sources. By centralizing BI and data management, IT departments can ensure data consistency, integrity, security, and compliance.

PowerPivot changes the game of BI by satisfying user needs, IT needs, and business needs in new and compelling ways. Users can drill into any aspect of their business and gain deeper insight on their own. IT can proactively manage the user-generated BI solutions. The business benefits through maximized use of IT investments, higher productivity, increased agility, and better, faster, more relevant decisions overall.


Betas

Finally, what we've all been waiting for, November 2009 marked the entire next wave of Microsoft Business Intelligence is available in Beta. Grab yourself a copy of PowerPivot for Excel 2010 beta, 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.

1. Explore the power of the 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. To learn more, Follow us at www.twitter.com/powerpivot or become a Fan at www.facebook.com/powerpivot. Check out our videos, customer testimonials, and contests to come in the new year!

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. We delivered a big competitive differentiator with via PowerPivot and Self-service BI in SQL Server 2008 R2. Breakthrough Agility in working with data on the client continues to amaze business users and techies alike with SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel, garnering praise during its announcement at the SharePoint Conference a few weeks ago. Showcasing the new types of Insight & Oversight that are delivered through Analysis Services and Reporting Services integration with SharePoint.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Eval (including MDS and Orinoco)

SQL Server 2008 R2 Express (all four packages)

SQL Server 2008 R2 Feature Pack