Excel 'at the hub' of Microsoft BI strategy

Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet is at the very heart of Microsoft's business intelligence (BI) strategy, according to David Gainer, the company's group program manager for Excel.

In his Excel blog this week, Gainer discussed the company's recent BI initiatives, which include things like the Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005 and expanded Reporting and Analysis Server modules that will arrive in November with the launch of SQL Server 2005.

For further explanations, Gainer pointed to an online presentation and demo of Microsoft's BI strategy.

One of the elements in the strategy will be Excel Services technology that will let users share and manage Excel workbooks on network servers. Also come are improvements to pivot tables and new formulae to retrieve data from SQL Server Analysis Services.

"Much more detail coming soon," Gainer promised.

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