If you live in Central Ohio and want to see my talk from last week’s SQL Saturday, I will be speaking tonight (Thursday the 10th) at the Columbus SQL Server Users Group. No need to register, just show up. Free admission, and I am told there is free pizza 
Location:
Goodwill Columbus
1331 Edgehill Rd
Columbus, OH 43212
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1331+Edgehill+RdColumbus,+OH+43212
Time: 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Thanks for a fabulous presentation! This was the best user group-type presentation I have ever attended. Your attention to detail and passion for PowerPivot kept me engaged during the entire presentation.
I think PowerPivot will be a serious tool, especially for those of us who spend our days aiding small- and medium-sized businesses with DW/BI. I see the following benefits:
(1) Faster prototyping to discover the “unknown unknowns” that beset all DW/BI projects.
(2) A lower cost/reduced skill endpoint in smaller organization for whom SSAS skill is simply unobtainable. PowerPivot may be SSAS under its covers, but to users, it is Excel. If they can manage tabs, write forumlas, and learn DAX, they can use this to approximate the basics typically done in UDM and MDX.
(3) A familiar report authoring paradigm. Can you make charts and graphs in Excel? Great! Then you can make reports AND you can publish them.
For BI consultants, this tool will drive sales. Many organizations will say, “We don’t need consultants anymore because we have PowerPivot.” (I know this because I have already heard it from a prospective client, er, not prospective client.) They confuse the end reports with all the data work required for quality metrics. This is not new; organizations everywhere have downlplayed the time and cost required to make data useful for information delivery. PowerPivot may perpetuate (or even accentuate) this false assessment, but for astute learners and people whose internal compass drive them to assess their own skill, PowerPivot will expose their deficiencies sooner. Realizing problems early ultimately leads to requests for help and reduced failure.
I am enthused by what I saw and I will begin learning this tool, especially since MS’ BI roadmap shows BISM being integrated into SSAS. You want to be an SSAS expert? Then you MUST know PowerPivot.