SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform

We are still debating the SAP BO license renewal. We want to make sure (by comparing it to other tools) that BO has kept up with its competition with features and general product development direction. One major point for the established BO customers (like us) is Desktop Intelligence (Deski) reports support. Back when the product was purchased this was the only reporting tool offered by BO, so great majority of reports have been created in Deski. Now, new BO release 4.1 officially does not support it, but SAP recently made some concessions to at lease extend its life and make it easier to convert them to Webi.

I think it is a very good product that is very powerful with a wide variety of tools for data analysis.

It is a useful tool used by numerous departments.

We may end up switching to Microsoft's BI stack as we use a Microsoft's PDW appliance which is not fully compatible with SAP BusinessObjects.

This is not really applicable, as I am no longer with the company that selected and implemented Business Objects. However, if I were still there, I think there would be a reasonably high chance of renewal. Once the initial investments have been made in procuring, implementing, training, etc., it would be somewhat prohibitive NOT to renew.

Its the future! The old SDK's are no longer being enhanced and the new Restful API's are being updated in an agile way that sees many updates per release. We are now looking forward to the similar increase of flexable API calls to the Design Studio, Lumira and Explorer applications in future releases

We are currently evaluating other reporting tools to see if they can satisfy our business needs and if it's a better long term solution. Price and long term costs will be a major factor in the decision.

If I had the authority to renew I would. This is an outstanding product. So much use and availability of manipulation for report writing and creating.

It provides the functionality we need to create management level reporting to our C-level suite of users. Additionally, it is a very stable product and there is ample technical support from the vendor and from third party consultants skilled in the implementation, training and support for this product suite.

The institution has decided to move in a different direction, and will be using MSBI for reporting. I have been very happy with the Business Objects suite of tools, and will continue to use them heavily until we make the transition.

After the initial investment, the renewal for support and new releases is extremely reasonable. Our entire reporting platform is built around SAP BO, all of our data leads to those servers, our clients are happy and we are looking to upgrade in the next six months to take advantage of its mobile reporting platform, so of course we are going to renew!

We currently have a strong user base, and the Des Moines area is a strong BO community so it is easier to get talent. The value is very good for the money you pay. SAP is a leader in the industry. though it is playing catch-up in some areas, it has the money to quickly resolve that.

Ease of use and customisation

I may want to explore what else is out there just to see how it compares, but overall I am satisfied with Business Objects, and I would want to renew usage. It requires little training to get acclimated with, which allows new employees to get up to speed very quickly. I feel it is a reliable and quick system, which results in increased productivity.

Its robust, dependable, and a very important player in my daily reports

I am satisified with the use of SAP Business Objects and therefore have no need to switch to another software (not to include the cost of moving to a new software). It is fast, accurate, and efficient so there is no reason for us not to renew the product. The product also works well for our company as we often have internal reorganizations and have to change the parameters of our data.

I would renew if there was nothing better in the same price range. However, the difficulty of data manipulation and dashboard creation can be a bit frustrating. I would look for a tool in this price range that can be a warehouse of information that is also easy to customize.

The Software is very flexible.

This is a perfect business solution for reporting, especially when companies are using SAP as their main business solution.

We will likely make this decision at the end of next year. We have 2 paths. We have to determine how we consolidate our various data warehouses, and what are the enterprise promoted tools. Most of the operations reports are in the WebI ad-hoc reporting tool, and we don't have any complaints about them.