Power BI

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration and content management. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s technology... more

Power BI is Microsoft’s business intelligence (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.

Power BI Overview

The Power BI line consists of the following components:

Power BI service, a Microsoft-hosted platform that provides organizational repositories for sharing refreshable reports and can connect to a variety of data sources, including those located on-premises.

Power BI Desktop, a free Windows desktop report design tool built on Excel data query and visualization features that includes a design canvas and offers a custom visual API to create new report types.

Atlas Members have full access

Get access to this and thousands of other unbiased analyses, roadmaps, decision kits, infographics, reference guides, and more, all included with membership. Comprehensive access to the most in-depth and unbiased expertise for Microsoft enterprise decision-making is waiting.

Membership Options

Already have an account? Login Now