Microsoft has put the veils off from the upcoming servers and further add-ons.

The company has laid out its road map for SQL Server and a complement of add-ons to redefine business intelligence and data warehousing.

The next version of the database server, code-named Kilimanjaro, is due for release in the first half of 2010. Kilimanjaro will focus on self-service and reporting capabilities for business intelligence. Moving ahead, Microsoft has plans to have a “community technology preview” (CTP) available within the next 12 months.

The self-service features integrated with upcoming server are enclosed with in a technology code-named Gemini. Gemini will help users to build business intelligence applications that can access data across many sources, aggregate the data, build charts and reports and share the resulting applications via SharePoint.

Also, the company is planning to integrate the unified communications capabilities of Office Communications Server to share the BI results. The capabilities will be tied to Excel, allowing users of that desktop program access to the self-service analytics.

With these expansions, it seems company is intending to expand BI capabilities on the back of its popular SQL Server.

Other giants in BI filed competing with Microsoft are, Business Objects/SAP, Cognos/IBM, and Hyperion/Oracle.

With Gemini, IT will be able to see how data is being shared, will have control of security on the data, and will make data sources available to users.

Further, the company declared plans for a highly scalable database technology code-named Madison. Also, the company is planning to integrate future servers with the technology of Zoomix, the company that it acquired in July.

Renu Singh/ITVoir Network