Re: Microsoft Reporting Services

John,

Reporting Services is a direct competitor to Crystal Reports, aimed at
production reporting. That is a valid, important requirement for many
organisations, even if it doesn't excite you.

But don't assume that this is Microsoft's only BI front-end plan -- they do
know the difference between interactive financial analysis and production
reporting, and are not promoting Reporting Services to be something that it
isn't (though of course, some outsiders might do just that). It's just that
Reporting Services is being released this year, so they are now talking
about it. They sensibly prefer not to talk about projects whose release is
further away, but that doesn't mean that they aren't investing in such
projects (18 months ago, Rosetta was also a big secret).

Nigel Pendse
OLAP Solutions
http://www.olapreport.com

"John Keeley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Claudio,
>
> Thanks, interesting reading.
>
> My impression is it is Business Objects/Crystal Decisions & Cognos who
> have a fight on their hands.
>
> It is not going to be all that dynamic off of AS cubes. No ad-hoc
> analysis.
>
> So PowerPlay, Crystals Analysis, ProClarity, NovaView & the Excel
> add-ins still have their market. Correct?
>
> Are Microsoft still not fully appreciating that (management) reporting
> is best done off of cubes, so that they are as dynamic as possible
> (slicer dimensions, drill down/up, decomposition of numbers, dynamic
> comments, ranking, writeback)?
>
> I'm not getting that excited.
> Please tell me if you have a different impression.
>
> Regards,
>
> John
>
>
> "claudio" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > I think that this link is more appropriate for yours questions:
> >
> >
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/itcommunity/chats/trans/SQL/sql0625.asp]
> >
> >
> > "John Keeley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > What is the scope of Microsoft Reporting Services?
> > > Will it be a reporting tool that reads both relational &
> > > multidimensional data?
> > > Will it be able to combine data from more than one cube & have
> > > calculations performed on them?
> > > Will there be any dynamic narratives (i.e. a way of storing comments
> > > to dynamic data)?
> > > Will it be web & windows based?
> > > Can the data be presented in Excel & still be dynamic?
> > > What are the main competitor tools? Crystal Reports/Analysis? Cognos
> > > Impromtu/PowerPlay? ProClarity? Novaview?
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > John
> > >
> > > www.a-la-li-la.org