We live in a data-driven world, and businesses of all sizes rely on data from a large number of sources to make good business decisions. But data in itself isn’t that useful — it needs to be aggregated, analyzed, and transformed into information before it can become useful to us, and that is where Microsoft steps in with its new Power BI analytics tool.
Today, Microsoft announced that it intends to bring Power BI mainstream. The software giant plans to do so by making Power BI a cloud-based solution that is accessible through any browser on PCs or smartphones, in addition to developing native applications for iOS, Android, and Windows/Windows Phone.
“With Power BI customers can wring every drop of value from each byte of their data. Whether it’s in a datacenter, private cloud, our public cloud — or a combination of all three — customers who store their data in the Microsoft platform stand to realize a greater data dividend than with any other vendor.” – Microsoft
Once signed up, the new Power BI Preview allows customers to connect to a range of different sources such as GitHub, Marketo, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce, SendGrid and Zendisk and import data from them. Customers would then be able to use Power BI Preview to model and visually analyze that data as it comes in live from the aforementioned sources. Check out the video below to see what the Power BI Preview has to offer.
Microsoft will be providing its Power BI tool as a service, however it is currently only available to customers with a US business email account. Although Microsoft did confirm that Power BI will be available internationally as it exits preview. Additionally, more data sources will also be added including Inkling Markets, Intuit, Microsoft Dynamics Marketing, Sage, Sumo Logic, Visual Studio Application Insights, Visual Studio Online, and many more.
If you are interested in the Power BI Preview and are eligible to try it out, head over to source links below.
Further reading: Business, Enterprise, Microsoft, Power BI
