To start with, Power BI requires Excel 2013. It also contains links to download some of the constituent parts, but it doesn’t necessarily do a great job of explaining exactly what you’re signing up for, or what these downloads are for. Microsoft has provided a web page to describe the product and let you sign up for a preview. It’s really one of the most compelling demos that I’ve ever seen. Overviewįirstly, if you haven’t already seen it, you need to see the demonstration that was done by Amir Netz during the Day 1 keynote. This post is attempt to explain what this product is all about.

I had the opportunity to speak with a project manager and managed to answer a few of these questions.

It also raised a number of questions as to how it works and what will be necessary to get it working optimally. One little gem in there that was easy to miss was the fact that we got our first glimpse at the HTML 5 version of PowerView – at least the renderer. The demonstration raised a lot of eyebrows, and showed off some of the great strides that Microsoft has made in this space. I’ve been evangelizing Microsoft’s recent personal and team BI features for some time now, and this announcement builds on that momentum. Power BI is in my opinion, the most significance advance that Microsoft has made in the area of Business Intelligence in the cloud, and it significantly advances their offering in personal Business Intelligence. Power BI for Office365 was first shown to the public last week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference.

Microsoft power map preview for excel