Microsoft is preparing to release its data managing, visualizing and interacting tool for free. The company announced free access of its Power BI Business Intelligence tool.
The exact date of availability was not yet given but Microsoft's officials announced that when its updated Power BI version is generally accessible they will release the free version.
The latest features of the Business Intelligence tool are currently tested for free in the U.S. but its availability elsewhere is still pending.
The free version's name remains Power BI and at the same time Microsoft will be offering an advanced business tool for $9.99 per user per month, the Power BI Pro. The Power BI Pro is cheaper by 75percent to the present Power BI, according to ZD Net.
The free Power BI and Power BI Pro differs on data capacity limit, data refresh and data collaboration capabilities. The free version is limited to 1 GB per user while the Pro version has 10 GB per user limit. The free version refreshes daily supporting 10,000 rows per hour while the pro edition refreshes hourly handling 1 million rows per hour.
The free version does not require Office programs to work, even excel, since it is a standalone program and it can be accessed through customer-sign up with email address on different browsers and Power BI applications.
Forrester Institute Inc. vice president and principal analyst Boris Evelson, said that the free and the pro version differ on data management. He also said that that the free version is good for analysis of data that need not to be transformed but if your data needs transformation tasks like reduplicating or merging rows of data from multiple sources then the Pro version is a better choice, according to PCWorld.
Lots of additional features were added to the new Power BI. Most notable features are the dashboard, visualization add-ons and many more. Microsoft officials also confirmed that they will be launching Power BI applications for iPhone, Android and Universal Windows and a preview version will be available on December for iPad.