“BI” and DV
I will caution against the abuse of the term “Business Intelligence”, because it misused by large companies like SAP, SAS, IBM, Oracle with obsolete software who are buying opinions of market researchers, trade magazines and other decision influencers. Intelligence is the attribute of the human mind and has nothing to do with software. Correct terms are Data Visualization, Data Analytics and Visual Analytics. For example Qlikview is the leader in Data Visualization and Spotfire is the leader in Visual Analytics. Boris Evelson will say that battle has been fought and lost – BI is a standard market acceptable term. More on this topic to come…
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Most of the items being compared can be discussed, but when it comes to Reporting, and I mean rich functionality for report developers, with the goal of creating pixel perfect reports from any data source, there SAP BusinessObjects is much better than the other players …. the answer is Crystal Reports!
Antonio:
I am trying to avoid the comparison of apples and oranges. Legacy BI tools, like Crystal Reports, reporting tools from IBM/Cognos, Microstrategy and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services are designed for pixel-perfect static reports (such reports usually designed by report developers) and are the main reason why those vendors above among DV Misleaders. DV Tools enable users (as oppose to developers) to have dynamic visualizations and dashboards with synchronized and drilldownable multiple charts/dataviews.