What are the best enterprise reporting tools like WebFocus and Crystal Reports which can be used from heterogeneous data sources?
A:
I've been a BIRT fan for quite a while now, using it in one of our products, but I've recently started warming a great deal towards Cognos 8 BI which we've integrated with BIRT using the same interface.
It's obviously not as cheap as BIRT but enterprises often care less about initial cost than functionality and ease of use.
Being able to move columns around and aggregate them in so many different way in the browser, easier than BIRT (at least for us) is a great advantage.
It's basically moved a lot of the power from the report designer to the report user, something our customers appreciate a great deal (these are, after all, management types used to having the power of Excel at their fingers).
paxdiablo
2010-08-12 12:05:14