Maturity of power BI platform

[chandramouli]

Hi All,

Can someone throw light on the maturity of Power BI platfom...When was it first introduced ...How many versions have been released...

Thanks,

Arun

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

The initial preview Power BI was unveiled by Microsoft in September 2014 as Power BI for Office 365.[4] The first release of Power BI was based on the Microsoft Excel-based add-ins: Power Query, Power Pivot and Power View. With time, Microsoft also added many additional features like Question and Answers, enterprise level data connectivity and security options via Power BI Gateways and many more.[2] Power BI was first released to the general public on July 24, 2015.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_BI

That's a good snapshot of it. Basically, releasted 2 years ago this past September as Power BI for Office 365 (Power BI 1.0). If you use Power Pivot as a benchmark, that would dial the timeframe back to June 2014. The last release data in that note above refers to the current release (Power BI 2.0) which got away from dependencies on SharePoint for the Service.

That takes care of "major" versions. Since the introduction of Power BI 2.0, there have been monthly updates to Desktop and I believe they are on like a weekly schedule in terms of updating the Service.

[v-qiuyu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @chandramouli,

Both Power BI Desktop and Power BI Service will get updated almost monthly. You can find updates each time from links below:

What's new in the latest Power BI Desktop update?

What's new in the Power BI service

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[Greg_Deckler · Accepted solution]

The initial preview Power BI was unveiled by Microsoft in September 2014 as Power BI for Office 365.[4] The first release of Power BI was based on the Microsoft Excel-based add-ins: Power Query, Power Pivot and Power View. With time, Microsoft also added many additional features like Question and Answers, enterprise level data connectivity and security options via Power BI Gateways and many more.[2] Power BI was first released to the general public on July 24, 2015.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_BI

That's a good snapshot of it. Basically, releasted 2 years ago this past September as Power BI for Office 365 (Power BI 1.0). If you use Power Pivot as a benchmark, that would dial the timeframe back to June 2014. The last release data in that note above refers to the current release (Power BI 2.0) which got away from dependencies on SharePoint for the Service.

That takes care of "major" versions. Since the introduction of Power BI 2.0, there have been monthly updates to Desktop and I believe they are on like a weekly schedule in terms of updating the Service.

[cosborn1231]

Hi Arun,

I believe it was annouced that it would be gernerally avaible to the public July 2015. Also I can't recall the versions, but it is save to say quiet a few as they have been releasing new features to desktop every month. I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Christian