PowerPivot Improves Data Manipulation for Excel Users
With the fanfare over Windows 7, it is easy to lose sight of some of the other innovations that Microsoft are working on. One interesting announcement focuses on the changes that Microsoft is making to Microsoft Office Excel, one of the world's most popular software applications, which is used by personal and business customers alike.
Excel will now have a new add-in called PowerPivot. Previously referred to as 'Gemini', this powerful data analysis add-in will allow users to retrieve very large amounts of data from many different data sources. Further, the business users will be able to manipulate this data easily.
PowerPivot ideally empowers business users to manipulate and produce data on a wider scale than before. Business teams will also be able to work collaboratively with this information. Interestingly, it will be possible to open Excel workbooks in a Web browser, rather than having to download a workbook.
To summarize, it should be much easier for Excel users to fill their boots with large amounts of data, and to manipulate this data in new, user-oriented ways. Here is a sample image from the PowerPivot datasheet:
You can find out more about PowerPivot for Excel 2010 at www.powerpivot.com.
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