At the Processional Association for SQL Server (PASS) summit Ted Kummert, Microsoft Corporate VP Business Platform, made several announcements about SQL Denali. For starters, the worldwide announcement of the release date for Denali was made – SQL 2012 will available in the first half of 2012.   

Having worked with CTP3 for some time, my opinion was that SQL 2012 would be available just a little bit earlier – like Q1 of 2012 however it seems Microsoft has more in store for us with this release.

One of the areas that Microsoft is focusing on intensely with SQL 2012 is extending the BI experience across mobile devices. According to Kummert, “Microsoft is committed to delivering highly interactive and immersive BI experiences across different devices to all users wherever they are.  Our [Microsoft’s] approach and roadmap for fulfilling this vision consists of:

1. Ensuring existing corporate BI web-based solutions run in browsers across iOS and Windows devices in the first half of 2012.

2. Delivering great touch-based data exploration and visualization capabilities in a browser on iOS, Android and Microsoft platforms in the 2nd half of 2012.

3. Delivering the best-in-class rich and immersive experience of the Microsoft BI platform on Windows 8 Slates.”

At the conference, Microsoft demonstrated on this vision with PowerView (formerly Project Crescent) – a new capability in ad hoc/self-service reporting. PowerView is a very visual environment with one of its design goals to offer presentation-ready data … always. PowerView reporting was proven to run across multiple devices including the iPad & Android table.    
 
In today’s environment, SSRS, PerformancePoint, and Excel Services can run on iOS browsers, just not to the full fidelity that we see with Internet Explorer.  With Kummert’s roadmap, I anticipate that the fidelity gap between IE and iOS browsers will close in the first half of 2012.       

In reference to the the 2nd bullet of the roadmap above, it is tantalizing to think of a touch-based BI and analytical experience. I’m expecting that PowerView will be best positioned to lead the way for Microsoft BI in a touch-based experience.

It’s quite obvious that there is significant demand for running BI solutions across the spectrum of devices and it’s very nice to see how this roadmap is unfolding for Microsoft.  Stay tuned for further developments.