Crystal Reports / Business Objects Product Overview? 1

[monkeybarfan]

Hi

I am a fairly advanced Crystal Reports user, from versions 8.5, 9 and 10. I have downloaded the trial version of XI and am currently evaluating that. My problem is that our company now has the chance to purchase more software and the businessobjects.com site is a bit misleading, in terms of an overview of what each of the products does.

Can somebody please give me layman's answers to any or all of these questions?

1) Business Objects XI - what does it include? Crystal Reports and what else. I've seen the demo of the Balanced Scorecard with built-in forum bits and that looks good, but what else is contained in Business Objects?

2) Crystal Xcelsius - I've watched the demos and am currently evaluating the trial version, which seems really cool. As I understand it the Professional edition is needed to export to pdf. Can it also connect to SQL Server databases or is the workgroup edition needed for that?

3) Crystal Reports XI - what advantages does the Developer edition have over the professional edition (particularly for non-programmers)? I like some of the subtle updates from CR10 to CRXI like tabbed reports and dynamic parameters but I don't know if I can justify the upgrade to the bosses just for that.

4) Crystal Reports Server XI - we need to develop a MIS system where end-users can run Crystal Reports over the Intranet by specifying parameters. Is the server edition the only thing for this or could the developer edition do it? We need separate permission levels due to confidential info. We'd also like to schedule reports; we are currently making do with the freeware software Crystal Delivery.

5) Crystal Live Office - what does this do? I've downloaded a trial version but it doesn't show up in my programs. From what I gather, it somehow integrates with MS Office, as new menu items have appeared in Excel etc.

6) Crystal Vision - From what I can see this is just a software bundle...Crystal Reports Pro XI, Xcelsius Pro and Live Office. Am I right?

7) crystalreports.com - what is this all about? Basic/premium too, what's the difference?

8) Crystal Analysis - what's this? What does it do? Is it good?

9) Crystal Enterprise - same as number 8

10) Business Objects Enterprise - same as number 9 and what is the difference between BO Enterprise and CR Enterprise? and 10?

I know this is a long post and I have tried researching it all myself but you end up going around in circles on the official site. Ultimately, what we are looking to achieve is an interactive report viewer and an increase in the number of automated processes our department has. I appreciate any explanations.

Cheers

 

[zaleph]

Hi,
I’m new to Crystal /BO but have gathered the following from Presentations I’ve had From BO Consultants:

2) Crystal Xcelsius - I think this is positioned as a stand alone tool but may be wrong. I agree ,it looks quite useful for generating quick dashboards ,that don’t require the user to log onto a portal. I don’t think it’s sophisticated enough to integrate to SQL Server.

4) Crystal Reports Server XI -Allows user to schedule report refreshes, as you guessed.

5) Crystal Live Office -Runs a crystal report, but returns the data directly into Excel (Other OLAP Products do this as
well e.g SAP BW.)

 

[monkeybarfan]

Thanks Zaleph.

Can anyone else shed any light on the other points?