Fredrik Tunvall, Analyst, Information Managment

The overriding themes of Microsoft’s latest server platform announcements delivered last week at the company’s annual TechEd conference were about design for the cloud. Announcements for Microsoft Windows Server and Systems Center 2012 R2 focused heavily on harmonizing management and deployment tools for cloud and on-premise use.

For the newly announced SQL Server 2014, it was about optimized backup and “always-on” integration with the Windows Azure cloud. With System Center, Microsoft has also taken steps toward managing mobile devices as “first-class citizens”. For the end user, Excel is promoted as a single end-user tool for query, analysis, data exploration, and data-visualization, and it is here that we also find the most BI innovation and integration efforts.

Cloud-first design

With the latest wave of releases, Microsoft has publicly committed to a new “cloud-first” policy for the design of new features for its server platforms …