Microsoft's next-generation database plan

Microsoft is planning to enhance the business-intelligence (BI) capabilities in the next version of its flagship SQL Server database, the company has revealed, and outlined plans for a new set of managed self-service analysis and reporting capabilities that will be integrated into the next version of SQL Server.

The upgraded BI analysis and reporting capabilities will emerge from a project codenamed "Gemini," and will be part of the upcoming SQL Server "Kilimanjaro" release, according to RedmondMag.com, a news Web site affiliated with GCN.com. Essentially, Gemini is a bundle of easy-to-use tools designed to enable average information workers gather and manipulate structured and unstructured data for better business decisions.

"Project Gemini is going to do for BI what wikis and blogs have done for creating content on the Web," said Kristina Kerr, senior product manager in Microsoft's BI product group. "In the past, you had to have specialized programming knowledge to create a Web site, and there would be a few producers of content and everyone was a consumer. That's the state of the nation right now for BI; there are very few people who can produce that BI information, but everyone ultimately is or wants to be a consumer. With this announcement, we are shifting that paradigm and making it possible for everyone to be a consumer and a producer."

To read the complete RedmondMag.com article, click here.