Time flies
Last week marked my first long train journey, I must use public transport more instead of driving. On my way to York my thoughts gathered and I could not believe it has been nearly two years since the announcement of SQL 2005. The announcement was on June 7th 2005 at TechEd. https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/jun05/TechEd2005Day2PR.mspx
What surprised me even more was the client had not heard of SRS (SQL Reporting Services), most people are familiar with Analysis Service for cubing, but not many are aware of SQL's reporting engine. SQL forms the foundation of the Microsoft business intelligence portfolio, AS and SRS are the building blocks of BI. SRS has other cool features to offer such as multiple render formats, subscriptions, charting and graphics, hyperlinks etc.
SQL 2005 integrated with Office 2007 makes ease of charting, graphics and mining of data. A whitepaper is available covering the following :
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services and Microsoft Office Excel 2007
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Data Mining Add-Ins for Office 2007
https://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinfo/whitepapers/sqlplusofficebi.mspx