Surprise, Microsoft if pushing integration among its products!  The latest kick is “business intelligence” the idea that databases serve data and content throughout an organization through Intranets, web sites, documents, and mobile devices. Microsoft’s take: publish everything through Excel spreadsheets, because the average Joe knows that if they don’t know SQL server. Otherwise, it is the common refrain from Microsoft that the combination of SQL Server, SharePoint 2007, and Office 2007 will send your users into blissful states of productivity and profits to stratospheric levels. But this time the dream includes a new application PerformancePoint Server 2007 that will provide dashboards, scorecarding, and other analytic tools.

Next SQL Server Goes Unstructured (sorta) . MS also announced the next version of SQL Server, codenamed “Katmai” will allow data integration with Office apps, allow unstructured data, and be released next year. (Bets are now being taken in Vegas whether it will be late). Unstructured data includes documents, XML, and geographic data.