My personal thoughts:
A sales representative and a pre-sales consultant are totally different “breeds”. If you need some more technical insight I can only recommend getting SAP pre-sales consultants involved. Or substitute this by a consultant of an SAP partner if you feel more comfortable going down this route.
If you think others BI companies offer you more value and the grass seems to be greener there, so be it, as sad as it is to loose a customer one cannot accomodate every single customer, sadly.
Otherwise, I can only echo Michael’s thought: What have you got to loose by contacting Mary from SAP?
Agreed, but if that is the case - then SAP should stop sending the above described “rotating-cast of sales representatives” out to Customer sites without the “Adult Supervision” provided by a pre-sales consultant.
Some customers are buying tools in “Good Faith” based on what those sales representatives tell them during the sales cycle - and then finding themselves out-of-compliance with their SAP-BOBJ license cops because the sales representative (who isn’t around any more) sold them the wrong (or incomplete) licenses.
I have already sent an e-mail to Mary that links to a number of threads on this site that detail some of those issues.
In addition to what Michael and Andreas have said, I am a strong believer of “if there is something you don’t like about (in this case, an organization), do something about it and change it from within”.
For example, if we don’t like what the U.S. government is doing, we are not going to move to another country like our Hollywood celebrities have been threatening, right? Instead, we start a grass-root movement to “influence” our government and to “change” their policies. I believe the analogy applies to the vendor of our beloved tools.
If you are a single small customer, a major software vendor probably will not be listening to you… and neither will Microsoft, Oracle or IBM, or any major corporation on this planet. This is where you need “collective bargaining” power. And this is where user communities like ASUG and SCN come in.
When there is a proper forum set up, SAP does listen. They stopped renaming WebI to Interactive Analysis is a small example. And Mary being tasked for ensuring “Customer Success” is a good indication that they are trying. It is never too late unless you gave up before trying.
As Michael and Andreas have said, give it a try. But please keep it professional and provide constructive suggestion. You have nothing to lose but a lot to gain if it works.
I’ve been a big fan of BusinessObjects since I started working with it, and I still believe it continues to be one of the best BI platforms out there despite its acquisition by SAP (that just proves how great BusinessObjects is!)
That being said I do believe this post is just showing the frustration of both customers and partners that have been negatively affected by the changes that SAP has implemented (and those that it has failed to implement) after this acquisition.
The Magic Quadrant from Business Intelligence Platforms from Gartner for 2011 shows this forum is a representation fo the average feeling:
“Our market survey data shows that ratings for SAP’s customer experience for its BI platform product, which includes ratings for support, software quality and for sales experience are the lowest of any vendor in the survey. This is the fourth year in a row for low scores. SAP has put in place programs to address customer issues with support and to address, more broadly, the customer experience.”
@Mary It’s obvious for both this thread and the Gartner BI review that SAP has failed miserably on being “very committed to their customers”
By focusing on their SAP customers (where the big bucks are) SAP has neglected all the non-SAP customers & Partners… I seriously hope this “programs” that Gartner mentions kick in soon, before it’s too late
Unfortunately, sometimes for sanity’s sake, moving to another country is one’s only option. Trust me, I know. Do you think we would have an immigration problem in this country if all those that come here could change things internally in their own countries? Believe me they have tried for many many years but here we are.
The same thing is true with most corporate organizations, I am afraid. Sorry,
Just as an observation: Deski was going away before SAP acquired BusinessObjects. I realize that some of the comments in this topic are not strictly limited to that concern, and I applaud Mary for coming here and making herself available to address those other concerns.
But it’s not fair to blame SAP for killing Deski. That was in the works long before they bought the company.
I second that and would sincerely encourage anyone with sensible thoughts or feedback on these issues to take the time to put the details down on a email.
I manage a team of Enterprise Care Managers here in Vancouver that are dedicated to improving the customer experience, especially for Business Objects customers. I was here during the acquisition so I can appreciate all your feedback.
Your comments are valuable to us. And I share Mary’s commitment to turn your present experiences to more positive ones. Please feel free to email me as well at paulo.vallejo@sap.com.
Hi Everyone,
I took Mary’s request for comments and questions and followed up with her on some directional questions I had.
In turn she forwarded my thoughts to Dave Weisbeck VP, responsible for BI Strategy here was his response\thoughts in the hopes to answer anyone’s questions\concerns…
As Business Objects, and now as SAP, we have remained dedicated to the idea of the best tool for the job. That means if you are a developer creating richly formatted reports to distribute information to others, then Crystal Reports is a great solution. If you want to monitor highly summarized information with light interactivity then Xcelsius is a great solution. If you are looking to create reports that end users can edit and tweak and you are not as worried about formatting as much as you are about ease of use and end user self service (what we call adhoc) then Web Intelligence (WebI) and Desktop Intelligence (DeskI) are great solutions. Hopefully you see the problem having two solutions to one problem ultimately creates confusion.
The reality is we have been working on WebI as a replacement for DeskI for about 9 years now. Despite the web name of WebI, it has been available in an offline (or desktop) mode for several years now and while some users remain passionate about DeskI, the vast majority find WebI simply more capable and powerful. Given this, plus the fact that we havent updated DeskI with new functionality in years, we decided that with 4.0 it was time to move to the next step in the transition to WebI as the premier adhoc solution. We are very much aware and listening to the feedback that is coming as a result of the decision not to ship DeskI. We certainly didnt take this decision lightly, and it is worth pointing out that DeskI remains supported for many years on XI 3.1.
But perhaps more importantly, you can also download a free trial of an offline version of WebI here (note, it is named Crystal Interactive Analysis, but it is indeed Web Intelligence):
I would definitely encourage you to check out WebI, as I would expect youll find that same intuitiveness that you found in DeskI. The trial I have linked to is based on the 3.1 version, and the 4.0 version greatly extends the capabilities and user experience.
Now I understand, their evaluation or process of thinking is incorrect …
DESKI is looked at as being ADHOC and only ADHOC. This is NOT TRUE!!
There is nothing, again NOTHING that can be done in Crystal that DESKI can not do. Or at least I never came across any.
The fact that they call it ADHOC is because of its ease of use as far as dragging and dropping. But they are missing what its original intent was. As an OLAP tool; or a closer OLAP tool than any other in the industry.
In their evaluation of the tools maybe what they should have looked at the whole picture of creating\formatting reports. In Crystal it would take me hours upon hours to create a report and\or reformat a single report. In DESKI it would take about an hour to create a report and a few minutes to reformat it.
Good points mitra. But if this is true, SAP is working to wipe out Business Objects entirely
I agree, if they want to totally wipe out Business Objects and Webi from the name they should change it; but they should also remove the old crystal name as well.
Thinking back to a tool called FOCUS the vendors renamed because of its newly created web use. They called it WebFocus. Come on, are they kidding, it still has Focus in the name and industry will always look at it as the old legacy FOCUS tool they produced.
Same holds true from the Crystal name created back in the late 80s. People may want it for Free, like it used to go out!
So, why name WebI Crystal Interactive Analysis. Even based on how they have categorized their own products, this is confusing.
And yes, I have worked with both Crystal and Business Objects and developed highly formatted reports with both. But I chose to leave Crystal behind way back when it was clear that Business Objects was a lot easier to use than Crystal and more powerful in my opinion.
Like I said before, keep Crystal, if that is what you like and wish to have. But don’t tell me WebI exists when all its back processes are Crystal.
Let me try to remove some confusion, since it was my email that was partially quoted and shared here (which is fine, but reading comments there seems some confusion).
For simplicity, I’ll number these so people can refer to them in case there are any questions:
WebI has long been the replacement product to DeskI, and that decision predates both the Crystal and SAP acquisition timelines and has not changed.
The Business Objects, and now SAP BusinessObjects strategy has always been the best tool for the job at hand. Yes, we distinguish between ‘operational’ or ‘enterprise’ reporting, and ‘adhoc’ and ‘self service’ reporting scenarios with Crystal Reports and WebI being focused on those respectively. We are also aware there is overlap in those definitions, and people will use WebI for dashboarding, or analysis, or operational reporting. That is fine with us, especially given #1 above.
It is about 9 years now we’ve been working to make the DeskI to WebI transition. So this is long planned, thought out and researched. We, however, remain open to feedback on how to make that switch easier, and what is missing to make it a success.
Dave, Welcome to B:bob:B! Thank you so much for jumping into this thread. Your input is valuable.
As you say, the demise of Deski has been long planned. That’s why so many Deski users have been making the gradual transition to Webi. I grew up on Deski years ago, and knew it inside and out. But, quite frankly, haven’t used it in years, so as to make the transition long before my hand was forced. And although Webi still doesn’t have all the features of Deski, I have usually found workarounds for missing features. In addition, I find Webi to be easier to use, and less buggy than Deski. At this point, I love Webi, and would never go back to Deski. 8)
Its a shame that DESKI did not replace Crystal. I have never seen anything Crystal can do that DESKI cannot. It is user friendly, quick report creation turnaround in development and maintenance(especially - you ever try changing formatting in Crystal - OMG)
I too have been a long developer of DESKI and WEBI is fine but the system hangups far out way whatever you may have thought was buggy about DESKI. There are some things I like in WEBI especially linking across reports, very slick. But sick of trying to find workarounds. That said this site is a godsend with that since developers out there have run into similar issues I was faced with - thanks again all.
In short, I think the push to Crystal has to go. I mean, there is nothing about it that I can promote for users. Webi is easier to teach them and Rich Client is coming up but the amount of reports I am faced with converting from Crystal to Webi has to stop. Only with the cut of Crystal will this happen but I don’t believe it will.
As mentioned by Dave Crystal is widely used, but this was so because of its earlier entrance(I think back in the early late 80s). It was a dog then and is still the same.
Name change, by all means, remove the word Crystal and I think your set. Remember FOCUS; changing their name to WebFOCUS didn’t help. Although its a nice tool, but not many know of it because of its antiquated name.
That said lets keep moving forward towards a faster and smoother platform.
I used both Crystal and BusinessObjects many years ago. For Crystal, it went way back to version 8.5. And for BusinessObjects, it went back to version 5.1.8 where Full Client (the original name of DeskI) was the only viable presentation tool (WebI was still in its infancy and nobody wanted to use it). Both presentation tools are great and I don’t have any strong preference of one over the other.
I stopped using DeskI since XI R2 because of the roadmap plan announced by Business Objects SA. WebI is getting better and better on every release. And I can tell you that it is definitely NOT a non-pixel perfect reporting tool. We have some WebI reports that have very intense formatting. So I think calling WebI a pure adhoc tool is a mistake. But I believe it is the vendors (both Business Objects SA and now SAP) that want WebI to become a full blown adhoc tool.
By the way, WebI will remain as Web Intelligence in BI 4.0. The proposed name change to Interactive Analysis has been cancelled, thanks to objection from the user community. Once again, as I have stated before, if a proper forum is established, SAP does listen sometime.
I agree with substring. Webi has grown up quite nicely.
At the risk of sounding harsh, the demise of Deski has been in the works for 9 years, and has been discussed regularly here on BOB for 9 years. So, if the demise of Deski has caught you by surprise, and you’re not prepared for it, you haven’t been paying attention. And complaining about it now isn’t going to change a thing. Deal with it. 8)
Well, Deski -was/is a great tool - I love it - but Webi is it’s child, I love it too. Deski is about to retire … its . ok! Naming Strategies of Sales is also something to wonder about… Confusion is perfect here in Austria did the customer get Xcelsius or Crystal reports the Name in question is: Crystal Dashboard design
I am organizing the BO-User-Meeting here in Vienna since 2005 we had our 17th meeting end of January the scenery changed completely throughout the years First it was a BO-partner supporting the meetings, then as BusinessObjects arrived in Austria with its own representation it supported the meetings all of them. Now since SAP is dealing with the subject, one of the usual three meetings a year is directly supported. I found some support in the DSAG the pendant to ASUG here in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. But DSAG has no focus whatsoever on BusinessObjects, I am still struggling to get BusinessObjects on the Agendas not only as side dish product to a SAP-BW This combination works well at the moment we had 70 users at our last meeting but there are still a lot of frictions SAP - here in Austria at least is focusing of doing the business all alone maybe with some big players in the consulting company community but the old BO-partner ecosystem is more and more crumbling as the smaller bo-implementations are one by one they say good bye to maintenance, to the products,
I am seeing some piece of work here for SAP-BO like a sermon my feedback to SAP is not quite heard. (and I am quite a preacher ) We even sang a little song at the last meeting about Old McDonald who had an SAP once
Well we could resume that this is as business always is - managers come and managers go the work is still to do
But I could imagine that working together with all the existing ecosystems and communities would be the better way than to do it all alone. SAP is big. But some small mistakes could have big issues following
So the spirit in the Bo-Stammtisch (=user)-Community is not all happy with SAP and its attitudes of being a big company
WoBi, concerned !
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) We even sang a little song at the last meeting about Old McDonald
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