The History of BI with Microsoft, through the eyes of a vendor

Rewind 25 years. An iPhone was a piece of science fiction. Personal computers cost an average of well over $1,000. And Business Intelligence was barely a whisper of a concept.

What goes into making an intelligent business decision? Information, insight, answers to your questions, to name a few. In other words: data. In the ongoing quest for answers, the early years of technology saw data go from filing cabinets to databases. From there, companies were able to generate reports, but they were one-dimensional. Information was silo-ed and the data was fragmented.

In the 1980s, analysts looking for more insightful access across more than one location created the data warehouse. This allowed data to come from multiple locations, but as history has shown, this was merely scratching the surface.

For example, in the early 90s I began working with global shipping giant Maersk, who tasked me with helping them collect and analyze data related to their operations. A data warehouse was created to cull data such as shipments, orders, locations, and costs, but no one knew how to get any valuable information out of it that would help Maersk figure out how to more accurately monitor and improve business. There was simply no tool or software platform in existence that could comprehensively analyze this information. Simply put, business intelligence as we know it today didn't exist.

Up until that point, employees around the world had to extract data from the warehouse manually and present their findings with tools such as Excel or PowerPoint. Whatever data was presented was an aggregate, bird's-eye view of business operations. There was no way to drill down or change variables. Any question would require analysts to start from scratch and create an entirely new report. Overall, the job was ...