BusinessObjects XI Release 2 delivers a complete set of BI capabilities: performance management, reporting, query and analysis, and data integration. This version of the application introduces significant innovations that deliver BI in new ways to a broader set of users, as well as completing the integration of the Crystal and BusinessObjects product lines.

Our judges were nearly unanimous in their choice of BusinessObjects XI Release 2 as the winner. One said that it is "clearly the leader in functionality" and praised its features as "deep and broad." "Most of the other nominees have a much narrower functionality, which means you would need to implement a number of products to achieve the same results as BusinessObjects," he concluded.

Another member of our expert panel singled out the "Intelligence Question" feature as being new and innovative. He writes that it "facilitates the use of BI technology by business users with limited technology backgrounds and should therefore expand the breadth and depth of BI usage in deploying organizations. It should also appeal to small to medium-sized businesses that currently limit their BI toolset to spreadsheets and thus help grow the overall BI market."

Business Objects has flexible pricing and licensing options, but BusinessObjects Enterprise XI R2 base pricing, for example, ranges from $750 to $1,250 per named user and $69,000 to $110,000 per CPU.

Congratulations to Business Objects for delivering a high-quality product that raises the bar in the BI market!

Editors at SearchDataManagement.com