Silverlight 4 Business Intelligence Software (Expert's Voice in Silverlight)

This is a nice BI book. It is not just about creating charts and KPI indicators, it also covers key concepts in the BI world. The author also offers his opinion HTML 5. I like what he had to say and his perspective that HTML is being born old.The book starts out with an introduction to BI and then covers what Silverlight has to offer the BI world. There are then chapters on Data Visualizations, Enhancing Visual Intelligence, Collective Intelligence, Predictive Analytics, Performance, Integrating with Business Intelligence Systems, Mobile Intelligence, Silverlight Business Intelligence in SharePoint, and Silverlight PivotViewer.One thing this book does not do is define best practices with regards to data access. The author's logic was that Domain Services was still in development and only available in a beta format, so data access is skipped. It doesn't take away from the book because I found learning to use the of temporary data generated from Blend (which is what the book uses) was a more valuable tool to learn how to use correctly, than to learn about a beta technology.The book is written very well and is easy to read. It also works well as a reference.The downloadable code is very well organized and is very usable.All in all I think this is a great book for any developer looking to provide BI through the use of Silverlight.

I discuss this book in addition to several others here: [...] I also offer some guidance that I hope will be helpful to readers coming from multiple disciplines :)I was listening to a Pluralsight podcast recently regarding Business Intelligence. The podcast featured Andrew Brust, founder of Blue Badge Insights and CTO at Tallan, Inc. The podcast can be found here: [...] but he mentions that Business Intelligence shops are just beginning to realize the value of Silverlight. I'm not quite sure why it has taken this long...but Bart has understood this for quite some time.If you're in between Silverlight/HTML5:IMHO HTML5 and Silverlight have different strengths and can co-exist if not benefit from one another. I am taking a course in HTML5 right now, so I'm not as well informed about HTML5 as I would like to be, but we do have to remember that the HTML5 standard is not due to be completed until 2022. That said, I won't be surprised to see some decent HTML5 development tools out there by 2012. There's a strong belief out there that Microsoft is going to replace Silverlight with HTML5....this has been dramatically over-exaggerated by what Bart Czernicki calls the "CIO/CTO Effect." I share his feelings on this subject but he does a better job at explaining this than I would so I would refer anyone interested in the topic to these two links:[...][...]Also, I believe Microsoft intended to send a clear message to their developers, with Mr. Muglia's recent departure, that Silverlight is here to stay. Mr. Muglia was doing an excellent job at Microsoft so it is sad to see him go, but if you read the above posts, this will give you some context into why I say this and who Bob Muglia is.

This book shows much of the author's experience and supplies a lot of practical background information. The right doses of quality, quantity and manner makes this book a pleasure to read. Exercises are practical and easy to follow starting from very basic to complex.