Microsoft Links Excel to Intelligence Tools

Many people do their business intelligence with Excel. It's an obvious solution. Excel is ubiquitous and so it is easy to get the required expertise. Many of the BI projects I have done have started with Excel data. It is often a good place to start. Yet as you look for more leverage, and seek to deliver tailored and interactive solutions, it is not the best solution. So it is natural that Microsoft is looking for ways to link Excel more strongly to their databases and more advanced BI tools.