I’m certain that many in the business intelligence profession have noticed a significant increase in the volume from Microsoft’s marketing team, particularly in the business intelligence area.

My inbox seemed to be full of Microsoft offers to introduce me to their BI solution. I was talking to a friend, and mentioned this, and he said “Yeah- got an invite to watch a Microsoft Business Intelligence presentation today myself.” My SQL Server magazine arrived in the mail and the front cover was “Unlock the secrets of SQL Server 2008 reporting services”. I logged into linkedin, and found a post in the Business Intelligence group from an evangelist at Microsoft, linking to microsofts BI blog and a new video they’ve made- The history of Business Intelligence. Now I do tend to listen to channels that have business intelligence content, I’ll admit, but it seems like a bit more than usual.

The video is certainly doing the rounds. I liked it- its well done in a light-hearted way, and outlines many of the challenges business intelligence has faced over time.

The best part by far in my mind is just around the 6:30 mark, where the proliferation of Excel is addressed. It can be summed up as follows:

And led to…

This where we are now, in effect.

Microsoft has the application we all have to run to when we can’t get what we want out of our expensive Business Intelligence systems.

The big question is do they have the solution out of the Excel head bashing? Well, in theory part of it is the Gemini project- so stay tuned for 2010.

While you’re waiting, take a look at Datamartist now and see how an Independent software vendor is working towards practical solutions today.