A little over six months ago, I wrote an article on Magenic.com about Excel 2013’s Impact for BI Users.  This coincided with the Office 2013 Preview release.  I discussed the addition of Power View and PowerPivot into the product.   Last week, I followed that article up with another on the fact that Excel appears to be Microsoft’s BI client platform now and into the future.

It appears that I am not alone in this assessment.  Michael Koploy of Software Advice, a company that reviews BI software, did a Q&A session with Rob Collie, a.k.a. PowerPivotPro ( T | B ), where Rob came to some similar conclusions.  He notes that “the inclusion of PowerPivot in 2013 is a major inflection point” for users to implement BI in Excel more fully.  I really like his take on the relationship between BI specialists and IT pros and the end users of Excel.  Microsoft has been pushing a concept of BI for the masses and ironically today’s Excel is the helping this happen.  Check out the rest of the Q&A about whether Excel is the next great BI tool for more insights from Rob.

As I start to deliver more solutions with customers using Excel, SharePoint and soon Office365, I am going to kick off a new series here on my blog – Excel 2013 BI Tips.  My goal is to document those tips, tricks and discoveries from my journey with the new Excel.  Some of them may be seem common, but I just don’t want to forget so I will be noting them as well.  Join me for this interesting journey through Excel and BI.