It Was A Busy First Week in the New Year
by George Peck

The week of January 5th was a monumental one in the new Business Objects/Crystal world. While the Business Objects acquisition of Crystal Decisions was consummated in December, glimpses of the combined company and their combined product direction are now appearing. The new combined Business Objects website (www.businessobjects.com) was unveiled on January 8, the same day as the announcement of the Crystal Version 10 products.

New Crystal Version 10 Release
The new Crystal Version 10 product suite, consisting of Crystal Reports 10, Crystal Enterprise 10, and Crystal Analysis 10, was announced. I've been working with the beta release of the new products for some time, and we're excited to be ready to help you evaluate or migrate to this latest Crystal release.

While more detailed discussions on this new release will appear in future newsletters, as well my upcoming Crystal Reports 10: The Complete Reference, key areas of interest in the new product suite are:

• Minimal Crystal Reports 10 Changes - The core Crystal Reports 10 product has changed very little from version 9. Probably the most notable new design feature is the inclusion of the Format Painter, allowing a group of formatting options to be copied from one object to others with just a few mouse clicks. Developer enhancements are included, such as improved .NET and Java integration capabilities.
• Crystal Enterprise 10 Enhancements - The majority of enhancements are in Crystal Enterprise 10. Seagate Info users will recognize scheduling based on calendars, event notification, scheduling of program executables, and object packages. Additionally, the Repository is now managed by Crystal Enterprise.
• Crystal Enterprise Business Views - This new data "middle" or "meta" layer product allows you to combine and rename fields and tables from multiple data sources, as well as enforcing row and column access based on Crystal Enterprise security. While retaining some of the same core features of the previous Crystal Dictionaries and Seagate Info View products, Business Views is a new from-the-ground-up product that vastly improves on these previous offerings.

There are many additional features and enhancements that we'll be happy to discuss with you or demo via the web. Just give us a call or send an e-mail.

Business Objects/Crystal "Roadmap" Directions
For us in "the business," as well as for many customers, this is an eagerly anticipated development. While more detailed "road map" documents are available on the Business Objects website and developments will be discussed during their upcoming city tours, here's my take on this first peek at a combined product direction.

• Phase 1 - The Business Objects Enterprise 6 and Crystal 10 products are still separate, distinct offerings. However, the Phase One Integration is planned for the first half of this year. It will consist of an optional "integration pack" that will, among other things, tie some existing Business Objects and Crystal capabilities together, such as providing access to the Business Objects "universes" from Crystal Reports, a common end-user portal tying both Business Objects and Crystal Enterprise content together, and capabilities to add Crystal Reports .RPT files with saved data to the BusinessObjects Data Integrator.
• Phase 2 - Coming towards the end of 2004, this next phase (preliminarily called Business Objects 11) will be the next generation of the current Crystal 10 products. This phase will provide the first "common infrastructure" among Crystal Reports, Crystal Analysis, and Crystal Enterprise, alongside Business Objects products WebIntelligence, InfoView, Dashboard Manager, and Performance Manager. Interestingly enough, a separate new release of the Business Objects Enterprise 6.x product is still slated for release close to the Phase Two 11 product that will continue on the previously-announced upgrade path for Business Objects Enterprise.
• Phase 3 - Finally, the Crystal and Business Objects products merge together into a single product slated for the second half of 2005. Preliminarily called Business Objects 12, this release will unify all existing Crystal and Business Objects products into a combined suite that includes updated architectures, user interfaces, and programming interfaces from the previous separate products sets.

How Long Will the Crystal Products Stay the Same?
One of the most often heard questions I've encountered since the Crystal Decisions acquisition was announced last year is, "What will happen to Crystal Reports?" One of the most often heard questions in my own head has been, "What will happen to Crystal Enterprise?" And, frankly, no one has asked me, "What will happen to Crystal Analysis?"

My "gut" tells me that Crystal Reports will be the product that maintains its own autonomy for the long run as the product lines come together. To quote a Business Objects presenter at their User Conference in Phoenix this past fall, "Why would we kill the Golden Goose?" In my opinion, Crystal Enterprise offers some key technologies that will be very useful when tying the two web-based product sets together. However, I would anticipate that CE will not necessarily look much like its current form in 18 months. And, although we don't typically work with Crystal Analysis, I think that Business Objects' strong presence in the OLAP analysis arena prior to the Crystal Decisions acquisition will probably find CA changing or disappearing more "short-term" than other products.

Looking Forward: What You Should Do
Probably the most key advice I can give is, "Keep up your software maintenance payments!" The preliminary roadmap document makes several references to providing the new toolsets down the road to those that are current on software maintenance. This is money well spent as the two technologies come together.

And, keep your eyes on our newsletters and website. We plan on looking very seriously at the existing Business Objects toolsets even prior to the integration phases so that we'll have the leading edge knowledge to guide you in your future directions. Feel free to call or send e-mail if you have any questions about the future direction of the combined Business Objects organization.

CDUGNA 2004 - New Orleans, May 10th - 14th
The Crystal Decisions User Group of North America (CDUGNA) 2004 Conference is being held in New Orleans this year. Join us at the Sheraton New Orleans for two days of intense hands-on pre-conference training on Monday and Tuesday, followed by the three-day conference Wednesday through Friday.

Mingle with your Crystal peers while learning about the new Crystal Release 10 products, as well as the new combined Business Objects organization. Pre-conference training will take a new tack this year, based on the Ablaze Group's successful Crystal Reports Boot Camp this past fall. CDUGNA 2004 pre-conference training will be offered in a block-scheduling style, allowing you to attend four separate sessions each day based on your individual knowledge needs.

Get information and register for CDUGNA 2004 at www.cdugna.org.

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