Business Intelligence (BI) for the Masses

Business Intelligence has been a major driving factor in the development of electronic business. Through the use of BI, companies have been able to leverage the vast repositories of data in their systems to help in achieving corporate goals and objectives. Traditionally, BI has been driven by large, complex applications often requiring installations on the scale of ERP systems and calling for sophisticated users and support functions.

Now Microsoft is moving to broaden the scope of BI adoption in business by expanding the functionality of its popular Excel spreadsheet, combined with its collaborative platform, Sharepoint. The large user base for Excel along with the fact of its widely known and understood interface will provide a solid launching point for the new initiative.

The result could be greater usage of BI and considerable improvements in efficiency and productivity among companies who need to make better use of their data. A summary of Microsoft's initiative can be found in Informationweek.