| Frequently Asked Questions 1. What’s PowerPivot and how does it relate to “Managed Self Service BI”? PowerPivot has two distinct components. A client add-in to Excel 2010 called SQL Server PowerPivot for Excel and a server component delivered thru SQL Server 2008 R2 to SharePoint 2010 called SQL Server PowerPivot for SharePoint. PowerPivot for Excel enhances self-service BI capabilities by providing you with greater flexibility of data manipulation using any size data set in structured or unstructured form using the familiar Office interface thru Microsoft Excel 2010. In addition, you can publish your analysis in SharePoint 2010 as a web application and share it with insights with your co-workers. “Managed Self Service BI” means that IT also benefits greatly with PowerPivot for SharePoint. They can provision reports – thus providing a single version of truth – and have end users work directly with data from those reports via Data Feeds. In addition, IT can track the usage of PowerPivot applications and discover mission-critical Excel applications 2. What’s the licensing model for PowerPivot for Excel and PowerPivot for SharePoint? Final decision has not been made and we’re not planning to disclose any pricing/licensing/packaging guidelines until later this year. Please stay tuned for the official licensing & packaging communiqué. 3. What version of Office supports the PowerPivot for Excel client? What about PowerPivot for SharePoint? PowerPivot for Excel only works with Excel 2010. PowerPivot for SharePoint will require SQL Server 2008 R2 and SharePoint 2010. | 