Comparing Access to PowerPivot

Written by Rob Collie

Thursday, 17 November 2011 18:01

Here's a question that comes up with increasing frequency: "PowerPivot seems kinda similar to Access in many ways, what's the difference?"

Why Does the Question Come Up?

Some of you are thinking "yeah, I can see why people would ask that." And others of you are thinking "WHAT??? That questions makes ZERO sense, they are NOTHING alike!"

You are both right.

The biggest reason why the question comes up, I think, is the longstanding symbiosis between Access and Excel - Access as data source, Excel as analysis tool. Remember, Excel used to be limited to about 64,000 rows of data. And many Excel pros learned to import large data sets into Access rather than Excel, manipulate and prep the data in Access, and THEN import from Access into Excel for PivotTables, charting, etc.