Good Power Pivot / Gemini Resources

Ok, everyone is hopefully aware that Gemini is now renamed to “PowerPivot”. IMO, this technology is set to make a very big impact on the Business Intelligence Industry. Here in Ireland, nice players like Qlikview have been doing very well over traditional BI tools.

The Beta 1 (or CTP2) was invite only ;-), so you can only download the bits on the Microsoft connect site if you were part of the programme.

The Beta 2 (CTP2) is “nearly out”. Everyone in Microsoft has been using it for ages, but the required office Beta-2 is not publically available.

The required SQL 2008 R2 Nov CTP2 is publicly available though, you can download it here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/ee315247.aspx

Here are some upcoming blogs on the subject, that I am reading:

- Dave Wickert (Analysis Services guru) has a blog here https://powerpivotgeek.com with some good gotcha’s on deployment

- Denny Lee (SQLCAT dude) has a blog here in conjunction with Dave https://powerpivottwins.com/

- The Excel Services Team has started blogging on PowerPivot here https://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2009/11/11/excel-services-in-sharepoint-2010-dashboard-improvements.aspx

- Rob Collie (MS PowerPivot dude) has started a blog here https://powerpivotpro.com/

- The official blog for the product is here https://blogs.msdn.com/powerpivot/

- Vidas Matelis (Fellow SQL MVP) has started a full site for independent news, webcasts, forums and the like on PowerPivot https://www.powerpivot-info.com/

- Donald Farmer has some videos up on you tube demonstrating Key features https://www.youtube.com/geminute