Excel (PowerPivot) vs MS Access vs SQL Server

I've been searching the web high and low to help me explain, compare, and differentiate between data manipulation using various Microsoft Office tools. I've found many links and articles pre-PowerPivot and PowerView days, but cannot find anything more current.

Please help me understand the MAJOR differences between Excel, Access and SQL Server.

The basics that are known is that Excel is king for analysis of data, and quick-adhoc calculations and visual manipulations.
Access can store and link more data more effectively than Excel (PowerPivot), but has now lost pivot tables etc, but can feed INTO excel.
SQL Server (at least of these 3) is KING when it come to LARGE data sets, tables, connections, relationships, etc.

CROSSPOST

The difference you have stated is pretty correct..

Excel is a spreadsheet application that can do a lot of things, generally used for Data Manipulation, Calculations, Graphs etc. This is just a part of it.. You can even build sophisticated softwares with DB connectivity using Excel.

Access & SQL are Databases (To Store Data)

Think of it this way, Excel can manipulate data stored into either Access/SQL..

And PowerPivot is an Extension to Excel (One of Excel's Business Intelligence Tool) to extend capabilities of Excel, generally used by Data Analysts to build powerful business models...

This is just a generalized summary.. All of the applications can do a lot more than mentioned above and are extremely powerful..

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