Answer:
There are two (2) portal configurations that can provide powerful and flexible access to analysis and dashboards. The recommended portal configuration (A) is based upon the Business Intelligence features of the MOSS 2010 portal (Microsoft Office SharePoint Server). This is installed and licensed by installing the MOSS 2010 server software on the portal server (this component has the same software and license fee for both Standard and Enterprise access. Secondly, CALs (Client Access Licenses) are licensed for the user access. The Business Intelligence functionality support (Excel Services, Performance Point Services etc) recommended is only available for the Enterprise level CALs. However, both an Enterprise CAL and a Standard CAL is required for all such users. It provides complete integration between the Excel 2010 design tool and the Browser based Excel Services presentation of the analysis.
The second portal option is to use the WSS (Windows SharePoint Services) (B) which is included in the Windows Server 2008 license. This uses Excel 2003 or SharePoint Designer for the report design and is based upon OWC (Office Web Controls) for the Pivot Charts and Pivot tables to provide browser access to the analysis and dashboards. These flexible controls have export capability to Excel 2003 but the coupling is not as transparent. Only the Windows Server 2008 CAL is required for this portal option.
