Not sure what you are referring to, but:
a) Deski was scheduled to be retired wayyyyy back, and BusinessObjects announced it way before SAP came into the picture.
b) It is natural I believe for SAP to focus on integration of BusObjects tools with SAP/SAP BW, and they have come a long way.
c) With SAP BI Mobile they/SAP have done a great job, look at mobility and offline usability with mobile (Xcelsius based) dashboards (as of 4.0 Sp5) for example.
Now, spreading rumors don’t help at all. SAP VISI is not targeted to replace BusObjects to the best of my knowledge, whatever that counts for…
Take for example: Could BusObjects Explorer ever replace Webi? Hell no. And SAP VISI is the answer to Tableau or Spotfire, that SAP/BusObjects should have come up with sooner. Nevertheless, I see it as a desktop version of BusObjects Explorer albeit with really nice and meaningfull functionality; less of a toy and more of a real analysis tool.
At the expense of all Non-SAP ERP customers though? There was a large existing BO customer base pre-SAP days which they could have retained even with the newer versions of the product set?
Agreed the mobile offering is compelling. Although there are other offerings out there that are more compelling that will sit on almost any type of BI stack such as Roam-BI for example.
It is good to hear hopefully that SAP Visual Intelligence replacing other ad-hoc reporting elements in the SAP BI stack is just a rumour. It is getting there as a visualisation tool to complement Webi but not to replace.
Even though the discontinuation of Deski in SAP BI 4 was alienating some of our customer base and certainly put them off upgrading I am talking about a much bigger problems in SAP’s attitude to the Non-SAP ERP partners and customers.
It need serious improvement. In fact I had to question whether I was actually working for an SAP Partner at times because it was that bad and they gave the impression they did not care, that they did not really understand our customer base, always trying to push the flavour of the month product e.g. HANA.
With the advent of SAP BI 4 also the only people who have had 100 % successful implementations of the product until very recent Service Packs (e.g. SP4 onwards) were SAP B/W and Integration customers because they did not utilise the power of the full product suite across the board as most Non-SAP ERP customers do (e.g. other ERP’s/RDBMS’s customers do).
The quality of software and testing since the advent of SAP BI 4 is also appalling and certainly it’s one of the worst releases of the tool I have encountered in 18 years. SAP denied continuously any bugs we raised and stated the product was stable. Leaving us as Piggy In the Middle with the customer. We even had to downgrade certain customers to retain them? With SP4 it has got better but the early releases were shocking.
It all leaves a bad taste in the mouth unfortunately
I think that Gary is referring to a general migration of non-SAP ERP customers away from Business Objects to rival products such as OBIEE, Microstrategy or the Microsoft toolset. In the U.K. at least, this seems to be a significant trend, not just one or two companies here and there. Is this due to the demise of Deski, product pricing, better alternatives, or poor support from SAP; who knows?
But as a freelance contractor looking for opportunities, I’m all to aware that it’s happening! This is just an all too common example from a recent job advertisement:
“…My client is undertaking a project to migrate its Business Intelligence toolset from Business Objects (XIR2) to Oracle (OBIEE 11g)…”
What you’re seeing in the U.K., I’m seeing in the U.S. In the past 18 months, I have had 3 clients all follow the same fact pattern:
1)An existing BOBJ customer.
2)Needed Dashboarding/Mobility.
3)Brought in Microstrategy which does both better (even as compared to BI 4.0/Dashboard Designer).
4)2 BI app shop for a while.
5)Phasing out BOBJ.
Not saying we should all jump ship right now, but looking at getting my Micro Strategy certs…
We are currently in the middle of a Bobj-to-MSTR conversion (well, maybe 20% converted if we’re lucky).
When in regard to “Enterprise Reporting”, I completely agree with you. MSTR has a LOOONG way to go in order to be even a decent platform, and is quite painful to both develop in & administer on. I’ve wanted to throw MSTR into the garbage can a few times now.
However, I’m finding for “Dashboarding & Mobile” development, I feel MSTR actually surpasses Bobj. Its much easier & faster to create a dashboard (versus doing the same w/Excelsius). I’m also finding the Dashboard connectivity’s are much more stable as well.
IMHO, using “BOBJ for Enterprise Reporting” and “MSTR for Dashboards & Mobile” seems to be the right ticket! Now whether the Exec’s & Brass will foot that licensing model bill is another story…
well indeed we are not SAP trained… or trained to see the WORLD as SAP sees it…
If we all are totally SAPed … then we would not have any problems … at least we would not see them …
The x.0 releases of BusinessObjects have traditional not been good down the years. General feedback is that BI4.0 is no different - buggy, etc. A bit like Windows, wait until SP1 is out before upgrading.
I’ve not developed on Deski for about 2 years and have only missed it a couple of times.
Its tough to miss something or even think about using it if the powers at be; namely SAP says its going away and will be no longer.
How idiotic that statement was it is affecting business and BI deployments around us as they drop from SAPBO like apples falling from a tree in a brisk wind.
I dare to disagree:
With the current patch level SAP BI BusObjects 4 Sp4 Patch 11 the software is stable. If you are an existing SAP BW customer the benefit of the new BICS reporting capabilities of Webi including better performance are great (no more clumsy and slow OLAP universes required anymore).
Some obstacles: LCM is not stellar, and if you are still using Deski you are in for an interesting ride when converting to Webi.
I have no personal experience of using V4 so my comments are based upon what I have read.
You say that the software is now stable, but this is after 4 service packs and 11 patches! How many of your posts over the past few months have advised users to upgrade to a newer patch (when they’ve probably only just installed an earlier one)? Please don’t take this as a personal attack; you’re advice and knowledge passed through this forum is of great value, but the lack of stability with the product is just unacceptable. Are you sure that patch 12 isn’t imminent?
Unfortunately, many clients just won’t bother and will simply use another product; it’s happening all of the time.
I agree with anorak, regardless if something previously broken is now finally fixed thru an SP HF or Patch, the point is that the vendor previously released a product knowing that it had functionality gaps, flaws and stability issues. Yet they still conveniently ignore these facts and continue to try and promote they’re product like its the best thing since sliced bread.
To me, its not about the fact that SAP/BO has fixed something, but about the fact that SAP/BO continues to allow a product to be released full-well knowing that it has substantial bugs, shortfalls & stability issues, yet still promotes it as if it has absolutely no issues/problems.
But then this isn’t just SAP/BO’s approach, I’m witness to Microstrategy doing the same exact thing too…
(BOB member since 2002-06-20)
(BOB member since 2002-06-20)
(BOB member since 2002-09-13)
(BOB member since 2002-10-21)
(BOB member since 2006-10-03)
(BOB member since 2002-08-30)
(BOB member since 2005-11-14)