Moderators please bare with my other post on the same forum. I shouldnt have put it under SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services
Dave! Please dont kick me out for cross posting
[edit]The unintended post in the other topic was deleted ⌠Dwayne[/edit]
I am sure alot of you have more input on this.
Last week in a conference Microsoft released SQL Server 2005 Beta2 with enhanced ETL and Reporting capabilities and they are claiming it to be second to Informatica in ETL tools. I wasnÂt there in the conference but a colleague told me that you can create universes like BO and built reports on top of that .As Steve mentioned in the other post about SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services that Microsoft was claiming that to be Crystal Killer, i wonder if 2005 is targeted to be BO killer
Iâd like to add that even though it uses Visual Studio, its more like a management console and you can drag and drop objects exactly like Query Panel.
Microsoft claims:
Has anyone got some more info on it? How good is it a tool to affect Business Objects market share ?
I suggest everyone (time constraints considered), sits through the Microsoft Presentation (No 1032259394) on the new Report Builder product for 2005, donât rely on secondhand accounts.
For everyoneâs amusement here is my secondhand account.
1, The interface, for those familiar with the WebI 2.x ActiveX interface you should feel very much at home.
2, The Report Model tool is a VB.Net project and isnât a patch on BO designer, only screen shots were available on the presentation, but the example given didnât appear to have a graphical interface, the classes matched the tables (1 to 1) and the objects were either columns or aggregates of columns.
3, The LOV equivalents arenât, theyâre just simple drop down boxes (for those familiar with MSRS theyâre ReportParameters).
4, The Report Builder tool is a Windows tool, you will be able to launch it from Report Services (ZABO?), and is meant for Power Users, clever stuff still needs to be done in VB.Net Report Developer. There are no plans for a Web enabled version.
5, Initially it will only be able to view one datasource and that source needs to be MS:SQLServer. They might have an Oracle solution at some time, but then again they might not.
6, If BO can reduce their prices then they could kill this off before it gets started.
7, BO could leverage (boy do I hate that word), their products to produce .rdl reports and eh, kill this off before it gets started.
8, Because of short term corporate greed I doubt BO will.
Is anyone of you really considering/evaluating this new tool? I mean I guess Iâm not going to find any opinion pro-SQLServer2005 BI tool in a BusObj forum but what offers BusObj that it is not in SQL2005? and, if there is any difference, are they really reason enough to pay the price of BusObj??
Reporting Services 2000 was oriented towards developers who had to create âcannedâ reports. It had zero ad-hoc capabilities.
Has this changed in the new 2005 version?
For better or worse, BusObj has proven that their patent is valid for their metadata (semantic) layer, and itâs a real competitive advantage. Theyâve won lawsuits against Cognos and Brio in that regard. Whether or not that advantage (plus cross-platform capabilities and other features) is enough to offset the price⌠well, I guess the market will decide.
Of course, if Oracle buys BO, weâll see how long the cross-platform stuff lasts.
Donât underestimate RS guys. Itâs much more powerful in v2.0 than you seem to think. I sat through some demos at a TDWI conference and was very impressed - weâll be attempting to replace BO with it once we upgrade to SQL 2005 and Visual Studio 2005. The ad hoc users use Report Builder for ad-hoc report development.
Why pay money for a BO license when you get it for âfreeâ as part of SQL Server?
I did notice that you put âfreeâ in quotes. Even Microsoft has admitted that Reporting Services takes quite a bit of horsepower, and anything more than a small user base is not going to be happy sharing the same server with the database. Another server, another license!
Iâm not discounting the product. Iâve not done a detailed comparison for myself yet. I just wanted to be sure that the term âfreeâ was in the right context.
Most BO shops on Unix/Linux that Iâve spoken with have more problems and less functionality than Windows BO deployments. BO doesnât work until you add 3-4 hotfixes. Most datacenters support Windows servers, and W2K3 is rock solid. For companies that are deploying SQL 2005, RS is a no-brainer.
So what? BO doesnât work with OLE DB in 6.5.1 anyways due to bugs. What functionality in particular would you be missing with ODBC over a native driver? Keep in mind that some databases only work in BO via ODBC.
What SAP/PS integration are you referring to? If youâre referring to RapidMarts, is anyone out there actually using them? I havenât met anyone yet that has been happy with them.
Learn about Microsoft Report Builder. First try installing ZABO (10 minutes and buggy)⌠then try installing Report Builder (a one-click install). Also compare the memory usage of Report Builder versus ZABO and Iâm sure youâll see that Microsoft is much more capable of building solid PC software than Business Objects.
Also, keep in mind that Excel is the #1 BI tool and is increasingly becoming web services enabled. More people know Excel than ZABO.
Itâs no surprise that BO has been purchasing companies with heavy Excel-integration, and has been pitching their LiveOffice features.
I laughed when I read this one. Yes, BO has made some progress kissing butt among the Fortune 100, and theyâve given software away to the big boys for dirt cheap to earn that claim, but they definitely do NOT have a âproven track record.â Microsoftâs software quality and service is FAR superior to BO. BO got a head start in ad-hoc reporting, but letâs see if they can keep up after the increased consolidation and competition.
After six years as a BO customer, Iâve never met a completely satisfied BO user. BO is a buggy and poorly designed product, and it hasnât improved very much over the years (although I havenât dug into XI very deeply yet). Letâs face it - users want their data in Excel, not BO. And they definitely donât want HTML or Java applets (WebIntelligence) for ad-hoc reporting.
Who makes the OS youâre using now? Whatâs your point?
Microsoft builds the framework and they incubate third parties that extend their products. Take a look at all the software that you can buy to extend Reporting Services and SQL Server. If you look deeply, youâll see good opportunities to save your company a lot of money that might otherwise be wasted on BO licensing.
I do not really want to get into pro/con MS or BO argument. You asked for reasons and I gave some. I was a little sarcastic with my remark about Microsoft and I apologize. However, a little rebuttal is healthy.
I have recently worked with 3 clients whose Solaris/UNIX platforms of Business Objects are very stable. It does take a little longer to get tech help from BO, but the instances are FAR fewer than my MS experiences.
OLEDB aside, Business Objects ability to utilize native db drivers has been a very helpful in development with less work-arounds.
I was not speaking of the Rapid Marts, although I have utilized the SAP RDT extensively and it was a lifesaver. I was speaking of the SAP and Peoplesoft integration packs in XI. I have just begun using the Peoplesoft version and it is very robust.
Admittedly, I am not familiar with the MS Report Builder. However, ZABO â buggy? Could you be more specific. Excel is the #1 BI tool, so LOTUS 123 used to be, what does that prove?
Quality: our opinions are not the same.
Poor implementations do lead to unhappy customers, no matter the software.
Just a point. Microsoft acquired SQL Server via Acquisition. BTW, I love SQL Server. It was a smart business decision. However, if I had to compare some of the other MS software such as MS Project and Outlook, I could not use good quality in the same sentence.
Business Objects is more than a query tool, which it does very well. It has to be evaulated as a whole. If you did the same with MS, you would understand why it is losing market share in the server world and browser world so quickly.
I agree, and so is a lot of rebuttal as long as we keep it respectful
I agree - Windows is predominant for BO deployments. So, why not go fully MS?
Iâm not sure what you mean by âbeen a very helpful in development with less work-arounds?â From my experience, BO 5.x worked fine with OLE DB. Since we migrated to 6.x, OLE DB simply doesnât work. They broke it. But, when my developers build Reporting Services reports, OLE DB works fine (which makes sense, since OLE DB is part of MDAC).
BO has no magical advantage over Microsoft to connect to other databases - I think thatâs a common misconception. I wish I was wrong, and that my BO 6.5.1 deployment was good enough to use OLE DB instead of ODBC.
This is interesting stuff, thanks for the info. Weâre on PeopleSoft and have gotten some value from Data Integratorâs PS features, but I wasnât familiar with the integration packs you mentioned.
Yes, I can be more specific. But instead of fishing out all the documentation, screenshots and TechSupport tickets Iâve created over the years, just ask anyone else on the BOB forum with a large BO deployment - or any users that use ZABO as a âpower user.â Itâs buggy.
Lotus 1-2-3 was only top dog in the US (not international) for only a few years until Excel ate it like a milkbone. But that was way back in the 80âs. Itâs roughly 20 years that Excel has been on top. The only threat to Excel might be this Google/Sun partnership - but I highly doubt MS will sit back and let that happen. One quick example I canât resist: Compare the recent release of Google Desktop and Microsoft Desktop Search. Use each for a few months. I bet youâll agree that the MS product is higher quality than Googleâs.
Do you honestly think Business Objects sells high quality software?? If so, wow, Iâm amazed. Did you try to deploy WebI 6.0, 6.1, 6.1a and 6.1b? How many hotfixes do you have installed in BO 6.5.1?
And what about Tech Support. Do you honestly think BOâs KnowledgeBase is better than Microsofts?? Have you seen how buggy the new BO Tech Support website is?? Not surprising since BO built it in Classic ASP - a nearly obsolete Microsoft scripting technology from years ago. How about comparing Windows Update to⌠well, I guess BO doesnât really have an equivalent, right? Or how about Microsoftâs Crash Analysis software?.. nope, BO has no equivalent. I think itâs funny that Microsoft has probably collected more data about ZABO crashes than BO has.
Iâll agree that there are some irritating bugs in some of MSâs software (I personally hate Visioâs âSave to HTMLâ features) - but I think Microsoft does a good job of limiting the bugs to just the âadvancedâ features. BO on the other hand has released software with glaringly obvious bugs that interfere with the basic functioning of the core software. BO uses its customers as Beta testers. Microsoft uses Beta testers as Beta testers.
When SQL 2005 is released, I predict that the initial release will be stable enough to deploy to production (as was SQL 2000). Contrast that to your experience with BO 6.0. Heck, even BO 5.1.x wasnât really stable until they reached version 5.1.7! BO has a long history of quality problems, and no evidence of any continuous improvement. None. Microsoft has come a long way since the buggy Windows 95 days.
I disagree, I think BO is mostly just a query tool. Theyâve tried to make it more than that (InfoView portal, BusinessQuery, Application Foundation, Performance Manager), but I think theyâve done a poor job of it. InfoView will never succeed as a portal - itâll just be a âplace where you can get SOME of the reportsâ (assuming you paid $100+ for the user to have a license). I donât know much about AF, but Iâve heard some pretty bad things about its quality. When I last evaluated Dashboard/Performance Manager, it was a cloogy layer that sat on top of WebIntelligence. It was nearly undeployable (just as BO Publisher was in version 6.x). I pity the customers that paid good money for those products.
What makes you think MS is losing ground in the server world? Iâve seen no evidence of that. (I know Sun is losing ground due to Linux.)
For the browser battles, keep in mind that Microsoft got in some big legal trouble for bundling IE with Windows. I think theyâve gained a bit by letting Firefox chew off some market share (taking IE down to 90%?). Donât think MS canât easily update IE to be as âhipâ as Firefox and gain the market share back easily. Also, I doubt many big companies are deploying Firefox as their standard browser - it just doesnât align properly with with their Windows configuration and deployment tools.
Itâs in this analysis. The licensing details sections includes the following: âIn interviews with Microsoft product management they are now stating that SSRS is best run on a standalone server with the purchase of an additional SQL Server license.â Admittedly far from a âsmoking gun,â especially given the authorâs potential for bias, but the overall analysis is at least well constructed and gives plenty food for thought.
Later edit: the web link above stopped working the day after the original post. The pdf version is attached to this message. SSRSandCRPDF.zip (42.0 KB)
Well at the SQL Server 2005 RoadShow event in Philadelphia the presenter flat out said that Reporting Services is NOT an ad-hoc reporting tool. He further stated that business users could probably use Crystal but they definitely would not be able to use Reporting Services. That is perhaps his personal opinion, but he stated it at an event that was supposed to be showcasing the power of SQL Server 2005.
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