At the last Microsoft BI conference in Seattle  project “Gemini” was annouced. Gemini is now available as Powerpivot (see also www.powerpivot.com). Powerpivot (inspired by pivot table?) allows users to analyse the data within the comfort of their Excel 2010 interface. In my experience however 99% of the data contained in an Excel sheet is often a datadump from operational systems or a datawarehouse (like) environment. Nothing wrong with that by the way. It allows users to play around with the data. But my point is that the data comes from the companies own operational systems. As most of us know (except perhaps the deaf and blind) the majority of data is to be found outside our own organizations. If you can find some way to combine your own data with relevant information from the net your quickly on your way to making smart decisions. As Rick Mans and I wrote in our recent article Samen Spelen (We are working on a English translation) the challenge is first to find the right information and than to make it manageable. So we want the slicing and dicing we do in BI classic on the web as well in combination with search. Well, Microsoft must have read our minds because they are working on something called Pivot (www.getpivot.com). It uses collections of large groups of data with a similar item and uses visualizations to find hidden patterns. Take a look at some of the demo’s and in your mind replace datasets like dogs, cars and playing cards with mortgages, prepaid customers or dairy products. I think Microsoft has taken a first step in the direction of mixing structured and unstructured data. Too bad it is still in two seperate worlds. Who knows what can happen if you mix it together. This leaves one final question. How to call such a product? Power Pivot Plus?