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A first look at Power BI on the Office Mechanics show

Headshot of article author Miguel Martinez

Yesterday we announced exciting news for Power BI.  Anyone with a US business email account can try the preview of the new Power BI today for free. The preview introduces a number of new Power BI including dashboards, new visualizations, support for popular software-as-a-service applications, a native iPad app and live “hybrid” connectivity to on-premise SQL Server Analysis Services tabular models. The preview will be made available internationally in the coming months.

When we reach general availability we will introduce a free offer, available as Power BI. We’ll also introduce Power BI Pro, available at a low monthly price, with additional data capacity and features for the enterprise. In anticipation of this move, on February 1 we are lowering the price of our in-market Power BI service to $9.99 per user a month, a 75 percent reduction in price. More information on these offers is available here.

For those not familiar with Power BI, it is a cloud-based business analytics service (software-as-a -service) for non-technical business users. With just a browser – any browser – or a Power BI mobile app, customers can keep a pulse on their business via live operational dashboards. They can deeply explore their business data, through interactive visual reports, and enrich it with additional data sources.

Michael Tejedor gives Jeremy Chapman from Office Mechanics a first look at what’s new.