SAP Reveals Three New Business Intelligence Products
German business software-maker SAP promised its investors back at SAP SAPphire that it will more than double its revenues by 2015, thanks to a big push on data analytics and mobile. The latest step the company has taken comes with today’s announcement that Crystal Server 2011 and Business Objects Edge 4.0 will be rolled out soon. The two products are designed for small- to medium-sized companies.
“Crystal Server 2011 was formerly named Crystal Reports Server. The change was made because SAP is “really positioning [it] as an entry-level BI platform,” and not just something for reports, said Jayne Landry, vice president of solution management, business analytics and technology.”
The emphasis here is on big data. One of the most significant new features is the Explorer tool meant to help companies in “drilling down” into data sets. In turn, Object Edge 4.0 is the scaled-down version of SAP’s enterprise-level analytics offering Business Objects 4.0. It adds to Crystal by offering Web Intelligence, mobile BI, and integrations with applications including the Oracle-E Business suit. This comes along the news that Oracle Exadata received yet another line of SAP certification, which may be a bit surprising due to the over $1 billion in damages SAP paid to the company a few months ago.
The EDGE edition offers data-integration tooling, and a third option comes with data management software. Both Crystal Server 2011 and Edge 4.0 are limited to one server per license, and will hit general availability in the first few weeks of July.
There’s one SAP solution customers won’t have to wait for. The company also announced that SAP NetWeaver 7.2 is now generally available to customers worldwide. This latest version, emerging from the technical foundation of SAP applications, comes with enhanced Java support including Java EE5 and support for open source standards. Version 7.3 also offers customers simplified workflow, and better integration with other SAP software as well as with Microsoft Excel.