"While the recent announcement of Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services may make it seem to be a new player in business intelligence, it has been offering analysis tools for some time, turning the familiar Excel spreadsheet into a business intelligence front end. Using this you can work with most data sources, designing reports using familiar development tools in Visual Studio. The server renders information into a large selection of output formats -- from HTML and Word, to XML web services and email. This will also be the first Microsoft tool to generate documents in Adobe's PDF format. However, perhaps the most interesting feature is its XML-based Report Definition Language, which Microsoft has promised will be offered to standards bodies."

<Rubs chin> Interesting, very interesting. This sounds pretty cheap and pretty simple.

1221 Also posted to: Home page . At: 9:59:40 AM  . .
Permalink  Top  Search Google  Technorati
Other title(s) for this story: Intelligence that means business: unlocking information assets