Microsoft’s Power BI Sealed with a KISS

There is no shortage of data these days and making sense of it all may just be within reach. Microsoft has tried to Keep It Super Simple—no one deserves to be called stupid—when it comes to complex analytics and business intelligence. Power BI is designed to help users discover tremendous data insights with the everyday skills they use with Excel, Office 365, and a browser. Microsoft wants to give people a powerful new way to look at, visualize, and share data in the cloud without the traditional complexity of learning cumbersome applications. In fact, Microsoft describes its cloud-based masterpiece as a “self-service business intelligence solution designed for everyone”. And earlier this month Microsoft announced the general availability of SQL Power BI—an online service attached to Office 365 that gives users access to a suite of cloud-based business intelligence tools. Among the promises are collaboration, data availability, and information that plays nice with your favorite mobile devices. To sweeten the deal even more, Microsoft is running a promo for customers that already subscribe to Office 365 (E3 or E4 plans), providing a price break that varies according to your Enterprise Agreement level. Just like Office 365, SQL Power BI is licensed by user. A subscription license is required for every authenticated user of the service. If you have an Enterprise Agreement, you can purchase it as a promo attached to your E3 or E4 subscriptions, or as a standalone add-on to SharePoint Online Plan 2. As you read this, we are already experimenting within our internal Office 365 instance. We run E3 and can confirm it shows up as an option in our admin portal. As we can elaborate on our findings we’ll publish more, so be sure to check back often. To learn more, visit Microsoft’s Power BI website: www.powerbi.com