Microsoft® Business Intelligence For Dummies®

Chapter 1. Surveying Microsoft Business Intelligence from 50,000 Feet

In This Chapter

• Getting a handle on Microsoft Business Intelligence

• Looking at the components of the Microsoft BI core platform

• Identifying Microsoft BI tools and features

• Customizing and developing Microsoft BI capabilities

If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it well enough.

—Albert Einstein

In the vast world of technology-inspired buzzwords and jargon, it's easy to get dazed and confused and give up hope. Business intelligence (which, throughout this book, I'll also refer to as simply "BI") is no exception; I recently heard a complaint that the alphabet soup of Microsoft BI terminology is downright overwhelming. Fear not! This chapter gives you a bird's-eye view of the products and capabilities that make up Microsoft Business Intelligence.

You also find out how to speak Microsoft BI and gain an understanding of these coded sounds and acronyms that make up the language. You can then decipher the hype and draw your own conclusions about the role Microsoft BI plays in your organization.

Introducing Microsoft Business Intelligence

I was once on a consulting team for a large telecommunications company's BI project, using advanced BI software tools from some of the top names in the field. Our client company had a massive data store with a ton of data. We tried to build some very simple reports — but couldn't transform the data into what we needed. Getting that job done would take more than a year of bureaucracy ...