COMPETING AGAINST MICROSOFT REPORTING SERVICES

REPORTING SERVICES WEAKNESS

SAP CRYSTAL REPORTS SERVER 2008 RESPONSE

Encourages Poor IT Practices

Encourage IT Best Practices

The licensing model encourages running both report

and database processing on the same server,
reducing performance for both functions.

SAP Crystal Reports Server can be installed on a server

separate from your database, separating report processing
from database processing and improving throughput.

Multiple Systems for Reports and Dashboards Single Solution for Reports and Dashboards

Combining reports and dashboards requires the

nd
Enterprise edition of Sharepoint a 2 system that
needs to be integrated and maintained as part of
your business intelligence solution.

Data-Driven Subscriptions in Enterprise

Edition only

Data-driven subscriptions requires the expensive

Enterprise Edition of SQL Server.

Features Lost With Different Browsers

Not all browsers support all viewer features . For

example, printing and zooming are not supported on
the Firefox and Safari browsers.

Complex Licensing for Virtual Machines

When using processor licensing with Reporting

Services, adding and removing virtual processors
trigger licensing events. Reassigning licenses
2
among virtual servers is limited.

Report designer based on Visual Studio

Report designers cannot edit a report with data.

Instead you must switch between a read-only
preview window and an editable design window
without data. This slows report design considerably.
Formula editing in the Reporting Services design
environment is primitive.
The report designer needs to to know SQL.

SAP Crystal Reports Server supports both report and

dashboard viewing on the same solution, centralizing and
reducing administration overhead.

Report Publishing Available in All CAL Licenses

SAP Crystal Reports Server publishing functionality is the

functional equivalent of data-driven publishing, and is
available in all CAL licenses of SAP Crystal Reports Server.
No expensive Enterprise Edition is required.

All Features Work With All Supported Browsers

Deploy to an extranet with confidence knowing that all

features work in all support browsers.
Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox are all supported.

Maximize the Benefits of Virtualization

SAP Crystal Reports Server doesnt use processor licensing.

There are no restrictions to your use of virtual processors or
the number of processors.

Uses SAP Crystal Reports 2008 to design reports

Report designers can change the report with data in the

preview window saving time in the report design cycle.
SAP Crystal Reports 2008 includes a comprehensive formula
workshop to help users add conditional logic to their reports.
Crystal Reports 2008 includes a graphical Database Expert to
allow for drag and drop table joins without SQL.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms251673.aspx
http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/9/5/695BA00D-C790-4C90-813AF10539D97991/Application_Server_License_Mobility_VL_Brief_Nov_2008.docx
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REPORTING SERVICES STRENGTH

SAP CRYSTAL REPORTS SERVER 2008 RESPONSE

Perceived as Free

Its Not Free When Using Best Practices

Reporting Services is only free when you run it on

the same server as your database server.

Good Enough Feature Set

Separating report processing from database processing is a

longstanding IT best practice. SAP Crystal Reports Server
encourages this by offloading report processing to a separate
server.

Have You Considered All Use Cases?

Reporting Services is perceived as good enough

for basic reporting tasks.

Refreshing data in Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint

documents: SAP Crystal Reports Server includes LiveOffice
to enable this use case.
Viewing with reports offline: SAP Crystal Reports Server
works with SAP Crystal Reports Viewer to enable report
viewing offline.
Integrating with salesforce.com: SAP Crystal Reports Server
includes the salesforce.com driver to combine local data with
salesforce.com data.

The Safe First Step for a Long-Term Business Intelligence Strategy

Customers of SAP Crystal Reports Server benefit from the same platform as SAP BusinessObjects Edge Series and
SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise. This means that all the content created with SAP Crystal Reports Server can be
migrated easily into these market-leading Business Intelligence servers as your needs change.

Complements Existing Microsoft Solutions

SAP Crystal Reports Server customers benefit from these advantages without having to migrate from any of the
Microsoft solutions that are already in place. SAP Crystal Reports Server 2008 supports:

Windows
Windows Server
SQL Server
Sharepoint
Visual Studio .NET

Using Microsoft Reporting Services Today? Federate and Centralize Your Content
To assist Reporting Services customers in migrating to SAP Crystal Reports Server, we now offer an integration tool
that can make Reporting Services reports visible within SAP Crystal Reports Server. This allows Reporting Services
customers to adopt SAP Crystal Reports Server at their own pace, without having to rewrite existing Reporting
Services reports. See http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/19377 for more information.

For More Information Contact the SAP Crystal Solutions Channel Hotline at 1-888-866-2366

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