PerformancePoint Services give a user the ability to create KPIs, scorecards, and dashboards from data typically not contained within SharePoint. However, SharePoint list data can be used as a data source.
PerformancePoint exceeds expectations when it uses a SQL Server Analysis cube as its datasource. The reason for this is that now information can be leveraged in the dashboard and can be viewed multiple ways. Another common term for this is slicing and dicing the data. This ability comes from data set up in a cube. PerformancePoint does not set up a cube, but rather consumes the data and provides a mechanism to display and drill down into that data.
The second place PerformancePoint shines is in its ability to use several different technologies and provide a single viewing source for them. For example, a dashboard can be set up with several web part zones. One zone could be showing the scorecards of a process, the second zone could be showing a SQL Reporting...
