Power BI Expands Reach and Importance

Power BI has expanded from a business intelligence (BI) service for hosting Excel workbooks into a full product family that is less dependent on Excel and includes multiple report design tools, mobile applications, secure connectors to on-premises data, and developer options for delivering reports that reduce subscription requirements. Power BI reporting and dashboards are also appearing in other Microsoft products and services as the default BI solutions, which highlights its importance in Microsoft’s overall BI strategy. Understanding Power BI’s new features and roadmap will help organizations plan for the future and invest in the right BI technologies.

Service Overview

Power BI is Microsoft’s BI product family that enables customers to share refreshable reports among users. It provides several interactive features for self-service analysis, in which end users or departmental administrators design their own reports. For most organizations, Power BI technology is able to deliver reports more timely and securely and is less expensive than a remotely accessible on-premises BI solution. Power BI is designed to compete with Tableau and other third-party BI reporting services and products.