Technocrat

Business Intelligence is a very exiting subject and a field that is undergoing rapid transformation influenced by things such as big data, data visualization, self-service analytics, cloud and mobile computing, etc. I have published a post titled " Business Intelligence, the Microsoft style " that covered Microsoft's renewed focus on and general strategy around Business Intelligence some time ago. Sure enough, there have been many new and exciting developments related to Microsoft BI since. So, here are a few things I wanted to include in this update: Power BI for Office 365  - powerful self-service analytics available as an add-on to Office 365 E3/E4 plans or as a standalone offering Microsoft BI at a Glance Poster  - pretty good poster that details Microsoft BI components and interactions Visio BI -  Instructional video on  Developing Advanced BI Visualizations with Microsoft Visio and SharePoint in the Cloud Great article covering Building A Simple BI D

At the end of January, 2014 Microsoft has released another set of incremental updates to the  Windows Intune, further enhancing its  cloud PC and mobile device management (MDM) platform's capabilities. Read more about it here -  http://bit.ly/1ffgOsw

On Wednesday February 19, 2014 Microsoft has revealed significant enhancements it made to the Office Online platform (previously known as Office Web-Apps), including a new strategy around making it easier than ever to find, create, save, share, and collaborate on documents using Microsoft Office, online and free!   Learn more about Office Online from the following press release , or simply visit  Office.com  and get started! Want to take this further and have an added flexibility of running full versions on Office applications on your PC or Mac? Check out Office 365 Home Premium at  http://bit.ly/1jgfR6t Ready to adopt  industry's leading productivity solutions for your business? Compare all Office 365  business offerings at  http://bit.ly/1aGY8hv , there are plans that cover a complete spectrum - from the small businesses to the largest enterprises!

Microsoft and DocuSign just announced strategic partnership aimed at bringing eSignature capabilities to Office 365 customers, read more about it here .  This is a welcome development and, in conjunction with upcoming Office 365 enhancements (such as email encryption, seamless document collaboration, better OneDrive integration, etc.), a good example of continuous innovation and rich ecosystem required to make any cloud service a success. There's a definite potential here for businesses of all sizes to have a cloud-based (elastic, cost effective) infrastructure for a secure  end-to-end  handling of digital document focused workflows.