Microsoft: Office 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2 go better together.
“Better together” is the concept that Microsoft has used to sell Windows client and Windows Server as a package. But, today— the day Microsoft is launching Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 in New York — Microsoft will be playing up how Office, SharePoint and SQL Server work better together.
“Better together,” in Microsoft parlance, means certain features “light up” when two products are used together. (It also means, in some cases, that certain features won’t work unless the “better together” complements are all part of the customer equation.)
“SQL Server 2008 R2, Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 are tied even more tightly than other “better together” products around PowerPivot. PowerPivot is a new business-intelligence feature that is built on top of all of these products.”
In an unusual move, Microsoft execs agreed to an “exchange program” between the Excel and SharePoint teams, according to Donald Farmer, principal program manager. This resulted in about 10 members of the analytics team being “embedded” in the Excel team, he said.
By making Excel 2010 the front end to PowerPivot, Microsoft is hoping to get users who know Excel but don’t consider themselves to be business intelligence experts to use more of SQL Server’s business intelligence functionality.
Expect to pay more for the R2 release than the SQL Server 2008 version. You will get a number of new features as part of the update. Volume licensees should expect to see these changes in pricing (before any negotiated discounts) (All About Microsoft)