The latest updates for Microsoft Power BI will remove the Office 365 requirement. Customers can now use Power BI independently of their Office 365 subscription. This allows Power BI to scale to a wider base since we are no longer locked in to the Office 365 license.
On May 14-15, the inaugural MVP Virtual Conference is taking place. The “MVP V-Conf” is a series of free 50-minute webinars consecutively running each day. There are five technology tracks covering a wide variety of topics.
Melissa Coates, Solution Architect with BlueGranite and SQL Server MVP, will be speaking at 12pm PST (3pm EST) on Thursday, May 14 on Power BI and how you can navigate the overlap in Microsoft’s Power BI offerings.
During her session, “Power BI as a Self-Service BI Platform: Architecture, Use Cases, Strengths and Shortcomings,” Melissa will introduce the four current approaches (soon to be three) for implementing Power BI components on-premises, via cloud services, and hybrid options. Session attendees will learn the key strengths and shortcomings of each approach, as well as what to expect from the newly redesigned Power BI service that is in public preview. Features of the new Power BI Preview will be demonstrated as well.
Melissa will also introduce the idea of “Bimodal Business Intelligence” which encourages different maturity levels of BI and analytics to purposefully co-exist within an organization. Specifically, we will discuss use cases for how Power BI, a self-service toolset targeted at business users who need to be more agile in their decision-making, can complement a more traditional, centralized corporate BI environment.
The agenda and registration for the MVP Virtual Conference can be found here: http://mvp.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualconference-agenda.aspx.
