Microsoft and Tableau vs all others. I do feel like most others, including Looker, are niche players with none really gaining enough market share to make the top two sweat. Microsoft's strength is really the completeness of platform (data+viz) where Tableau has been trying bolt on pieces over time.

I think it's too bad that there isn't more competition as I feel like innovation in BI is stalling. Overall BI is becoming commoditized while adjacent Data Engineering and Data Science/Analytics are surging.

Some of the up-and-comers have interesting approaches. I'd like to see more around.

• Multi-channel BI (portal, push, stream)

• BI/Data API interfaces (not strictly reporting/viz)

• GraphDB support

• More robust cross datasource joining (more like data federation including db, nosql/json, api)

• Real-time reporting

• Context aware embedded BI

As a side note I find it sad that MicroStrategy is investing $300M in Bitcoin. It's like seeing your Uncle get hooked on meth.

I first started using PBI a little more than 4 years ago after using Tableau for a year. It felt a little rough and unrefined. Now, it feels like a fully capable, refined, and mature tool. Really impressive what they have done.

But, putting our cap aside for a moment, it’s worth noting that Power BI can only be deployed in Azure. This limits your ability to use services from other cloud providers, and also potentially creates high switching costs.

Power BI does offer the On-Premise "Power BI Report Server". It's just SQL Server Reporting Services re-skinned with the ability to host Power BI reports as well as Paginated Reports, so it's limited, but it's there. Free if you buy premium, too.