CrystalReports.com 4

[bdreed35]

It looks like Business Objects now offers a hosted Enterprise solution:

http://www.crystalreports.com/

Thoughts?

~Brian

 

[synapsevampire]

Interesting, anyone have any info about scheduling, additional licenses, etc.?

-k

 

[IdoMillet]

Hi Brian,

Thanks! I assume this is only with saved data in the rpt files.

Cheers,
- Ido

Visual CUT & DataLink Viewer:
view, e-mail, export, burst, distribute, and schedule Crystal Reports.

http://www.MilletSoftware.com

 

[IdoMillet]

I called them and found out that:

1. The rpt file must indeed be saved with data

2. There's no way to make the upload to their web site automated (for example, email with rpt attached)

3. If you wish to go beyons the free 60 reports and 10 users, they have a premium service that starts at $299 + $30/user.

Cheers,
- Ido


Visual CUT & DataLink Viewer:
view, e-mail, export, burst, distribute, and schedule Crystal Reports.

http://www.MilletSoftware.com

 

[synapsevampire]

Thanks, Ido.

Doesn't sound very useful to my clients, but it may prove worthwhile to some. It sounds like a web hosting service that uses a proprietary format...

-k

 

[rhinok]

I was privvy to a pre-release demo and was asked to provide a quote for press release. Here's some of the text from my email commments back to a BOBJ Marketing rep:

Good morning ,

When I first heard of crystalreports.com, I thought it was going to be a hosted ASP model for an enterprise solution. Clearly, that is not the case. Based on my understanding, crystalreports.com is a mechanism to upload static Crystal Reports to the web for end users to review. Here are what I consider the primary pros and cons to be:


Pros:


1) Access reports from the public internet

2) Zero Client installation (knowing that either an ActiveX or Java BHO may still be installed, if those viewers are used)

3) Ability to store instances of reports

4) No hardware infrastructure to purchase and maintain

Cons:


1) Requires a resource to manually upload and manage report instances, no native scheduling capability

2) Static reports (unless you create a custom script to upload successfully scheduled report instances from Enterprise or another scheduler)


Who’s going to use this product? I think crystalreports.com will be used primarily by very small customers. As an example, I have my own small consulting company that specializes in reporting. I could personally use this product as a means to demonstrate my company’s report design capabilities by publishing several complicated report samples or report styles. Most of my customers, however, would use either Crystal Reports Server or BusinessObjects Enterprise internally for their reporting needs. I envision this product being used by small customers such as real estate agents, accountants, etc… to publish information to their clients as long as those customers have a resource for creating and publishing reports.


I would be more than happy to participate in either beta program. Based on my experiences, I would also be more than happy to participate in your product launch.


Best regards, Kurt

As you can see from my comments, this product is really limited and is probably only applicable to very small clients. Based on the demo, an 'ideal' client would be a developer/company who currently pushes reports out to users (either interal or external) via email. There are several limitations to this method. One such limitation is the developer has to maintain instances manually so that a report can be resent should the user delete or lose the original email or attachment.

The developer could install Crystal Reports server, at minimum, and automate this process, but what if the developer/company can't afford hardware and/or doesn't have the resources to administer the application? Then, at minimum, the developer can upload the files to CrystalReports.com (which is based on the Enterprise platform) for end users to review.

I would second SV's comment. Basically, this is secure webhosting for a proprietary file format. I would prefer to see a hosted BOEXI solution for a subscription fee.

One thing I found interesting is that another participant in the pre-release demo and Q+A stated that his company is currently using Crystal Enterprise and wanted to know if he could schedule reports through Enterprise to be uploaded automatically to CrystalReports.com. The answer was yes, with custom code. According to the Enterprise user, his environment was very small and additional users were prohibitively expensive. He was looking for a way to get more reports out, but at a lower cost.

~Kurt