Today at the SharePoint Conference, we announced the name of Project Gemini would become Microsoft PowerPivot. Microsoft Powerpivot is an advanced Business Intelligence solution for Microsoft Excel that allows users to work with massive volumes of data (think hundreds of millions of rows) on a standard desktop computer (i.e. 1-2 Gb RAM) at near instant speed.
PowerPivot for Excel is a data analysis tool that delivers unmatched computational power directly within the application users already know and love—Microsoft Excel. Leveraging familiar Excel features, users can transform enormous quantities of data from virtually any source with incredible speed into meaningful information to get the answers they need in seconds.
Using SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint 2010 (delivered thru SQL Server 2008 R2 in SharePoint 2010), end users can effortlessly and securely share their finding with others and work seamlessly in the browser with the same performance and features as the Excel client. PowerPivot for SharePoint even helps IT departments improve their operational efficiencies through SharePoint-based management tool called PowerPivot Management Dashboard. IT administrators can track usage patterns over time, drill down to obtain more details, discover mission-critical solutions, and ensure performance by making sure users have the appropriate resources.
The Microsoft Business Intelligence strategy differs from most other BI offerings in that the goal is not to sell high price per user solutions that are available only to a select few in the organization (due to price). Instead Microsoft is working hard to integrate Business Intelligence into the core data oriented products that Microsoft already sells and ships to customers – namely SQL Server, SharePoint Server and Microsoft Office. As organizations tend to license these products for everyone, the Microsoft vision and strategy is to deliver Business Intelligence to everyone in the organization at commodity prices.
The future of Microsoft’s Business Intelligence offering is very exciting, if you are interested in BI, then stay tuned – the world is changing rapidly.
*UPDATE* More information now available on the Gemini team blog here.