PowerPivot Twins! » Opinion

TechEd NorthAmerica 2010 Sessions

dennyglee — Wed, 05 May 2010 03:36:50 +0000

For a listing of PowerPivotGeek’s PowerPivot sessions at TechEd North America 2010 (also known as the BI Conference 2010), check out:

TechEd NorthAmerica 2010 Sessions.

One thing that is missing from this list is also the joint session between Rob Collie (@PowerPivotPro) and Dave Wickert whom will do a PowerPivot power chalk talk. If you’re in New Orleans for the BI Conf / TechEd NA and into PowerPivot – these are your sessions!

Filed under: Perspectives Tagged: Opinion, SharePoint

Why PowerPivot for SharePoint?

dennyglee — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:09:08 +0000

By powerpivotgeek (dwickert@microsoft.com), on December 2nd, 2009

From time to time I hear questions and comments from folks questioning why they should purchase the server-side component for PowerPivot. After all, the client software is free (with a Office 2010 Professional license). Why spend the money to invest in the server pieces . . . And because it requires a SQL Server Enterprise Edition license, it can get costly.

Having spent 3+ years of my life developing this product, naturally I have a fair amount of passion around this topic. The following is my own personal reasons; my own personal goals for the software and why I believe PowerPivot is such a pivotal (pun intended) component in a company’s BI strategy. This is not marketing and I apologize up front for it. So here goes:

What is the value-add for PowerPivot for SharePoint?

“PowerPivot Twins” is itself a double-take!

dennyglee — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:15:52 +0000

On a more off the wall note, I just realized that we have a bit of a double take (ha!) here concerning the idea and name “PowerPivot Twins”. The code name for PowerPivot was “Project Gemini”. The name Gemini had been chosen for this project because of its meaning:

Gemini – Gemini (pronounced /ˈ gɛmɪnaɪ /, Latin: twins, symbol ♊) is one of the constellations of the zodiac known as “the twins“

Within the BI world, the “twins” are the traditionally conflicting ideas of the Users who are trying to model, analyze, and share the data and the IT Administrators who are trying to provision, administer, and secure the data. With PowerPivot, we are able to unite these “twins” because we are:

Giving Users the ability to understand the data by giving them more power within the tool they trust: Excel
Giving IT Administrators the ability to manage all of this data by using the information management tool of choice: SharePoint.

But even more interesting than the fact that the “PowerPivot Twins” allows us to pay homage to our “twins” roots within Gemini…even we, the PowerPivot Twins ourselves, pay homage to the idea of these two “twins”.

I, Denny Lee, work for the SQL Customer Advisory Team; in the case of PowerPivot I typically represent the customer – i.e. the Users. Dave Wickert works for the Analysis Services team; in his previous role as an Analysis Services guru and current role as the PowerPivot SharePoint Integration PM, he typically represents the IT Administrator.

So we, the “PowerPivot Twins”, pay homage to Project Gemini not just in reference to our twins roots, but also that we ourselves represent the two equal parts of the BI twins.

Just food for thought (or perhaps I just need more sleep)

Posted in Perspectives Tagged: Opinion

“BI strategy? We don’t need no stink’en BI strategy!”

dennyglee — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 08:53:27 +0000

Want to know more about Dave Wickert‘s thoughts on the Forrester report “10 strong hints your enterprise may not have a BI strategy“; I think you can figure out the direction of his thoughts just with the title of his blog post below

“BI strategy? We don’t need no stink’en BI strategy!”.

As for the PowerPivot perspective in all of this, I was all ready to start chiming in about it and realized it would be significantly easier for me – and much easier for you (to read) to read Rob Collie‘s blog:

Forrester Top 10 – The View From PowerPivot

Enjoy!

Posted in Perspectives Tagged: Opinion