For companies concerned about the speed of reporting or size of Salesforce data sets, SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand provides a preconfigured data warehouse that can be implemented in as little as a day. The data warehouseprovides a duplicate set of data that can dramatically improve reporting time and speed information delivery.

Since they offer a free trial and I have a few years of SAP experience I thought I’d give it a spin. The signup process was pretty painless and after logging in I set up my connection to a production org (looks like sandbox connections are not an option).

The entire application is essentially a series of Flex applications. After logging into my org I was presented with the following screen displaying the metadata for the org and allowing me to drag and drop fields from any object to create a dataset.

It then presents you with a preview of the dataset and the associated SOQL query. Once you confirm the query and save the dataset the data is imported from your org into the warehouse’s datastore.

You can then see your newly created dataset in the list of available datasets.

After clicking on the dataset you are presented with the main UI for that dataset. Your options here include:

• View data in the dataset
• Perform ad-hoc queries against the dataset
• Explore the dataset to slice and dice it to create more specific datasets or visualizations
• Share the dataset with other uses (similar functionality to Google Docs sharing). I also noticed that you can share the actual web service address.
• Download the data in CSV format
• Combine with other datasets for more detailed reporting
• Duplicate the dataset
• Delete the dataset

With the Explore tab you can drill down into your data and run various scenario to create your own dataset and save results as a visualization that you can share or display with an iframe.

The product has a ton of features (it’s based off of Crystal Reports which SAP bought in 2007) and I only had time to try a few. If you are looking for a simple way to access and externally report on your Salesforce.com data, you might want to give SAP’s BusinessObjects™ BI OnDemand solution good look.

Unfortunately over the past couple of years Business ByDesgin has been plagued by some really bad press:

• Inside SAP’s Idled Business ByDesign Suite
• SAP still trying to bring cloud computing down to earth
• Sapphire: SAP bullish as firms sign up to ‘Salesforce killer’
• SAP’s Business ByDesign: A Riddle, Wrapped in a Mystery, Inside an Enigma
• What really happened with SAP Business ByDesign?

SAP gave an update a couple of days ago at a London event. Some of the problems Business ByDesign is dealing with include:

• Scalability issues – all customers run on their own blade servers
• Overly “feature-rich” – the suite was originally designed to meet all of the needs of its customer base instead of focusing on specific functionality
• Lack of corporate commitment – SAP is cutting R&D funding and shifting resources to other products
• Runs on NetWeaver – a full instance is too heavy for a SaaS application and finding “cloud developers” who have full Java EE stack experience may be tough

I worked at an SAP consulting company in the last 4-5 years of the dotcom era. At that time, SAP was pounded for not exposing core functionality via web services thus maintaining a silo of corporate data. In a couple of years SAP turn that giant freighter around and exposed almost everything via NetWeaver. SAP is a 1000 lbs gorilla but when it decides to do something, it may take awhile, but it becomes a force to be reckoned with.

However, 1-2 years in internet-time is forever. New markets may come and go in that time frame. SAP needs to become more agile if it wants to compete in the cloud space. SAP bought Coghead earlier this year but there seems to be no mention of how its technology is being utilized.

Can SAP pull off “cloud computing”?  How does a company that has thrived for so long on an on-premise, high-margin, maintenance-fee model, move customers to a hosted, low-cost, user-licensed model without going bankrupt? I’d hate to be the marketing team in Waldorf.

This post discusses the Web Dynpro for ABAP framework in SAP NetWeaver 7.0 EhP1 and how it provides new libraries that make it easy to add rich data visualization to applications using the Flex framework.

The Adobe Flash capabilities in Web Dynpro allow a custom-developed Flex or Flash control to be integrated into SAP’s Web Dynpro applications with minimal effort. SAP provides a set of libraries that handle the mapping of data sources, properties, events and event parameters, as well as a way to bind the SWF files into Web Dynpro as a standard UI element.

I may have to talk to the SAP team and see if I can get a login….

Since SAP is having problems with the CRM adoptions it will be interesting to see how (if) they integrate Coghead into their stack.

This move seems to be an admission by SAP that their core business is in decline (which Fortune 500 company isn’t running one or more ERP systems?) and that NetWeaver isn’t driving as much revenue as they hoped. The purchase seems to fit into their strategy of market accessiblity and its push into the mid-market. SAP has BI solutions for larger companies while Crystal Reports positioned for mid-market companies.

Apparently SAP is concerned about Oracle pushing into its BI territory with their acquisition of Hyperion. Oracle is has been on a buying spree for the past number of years (Siebel, PeopleSoft, Innobase, Sleepycat, etc.) and SAP is starting to see the need to broaden its portfolio.

“NetWeaver was available previously only to companies that bought SAP software, but now any individual who joins the SAP developer network can buy a one-year license including software and services to develop and test applications on NetWeaver.”

Here is the catch:

1. For internal development and evaluation only, not production use
2. A one year license is $2,300.

Read more at InfoWorld.

The mid-market solution is targeted at companies with 100-500 employees and is priced at $149 per user per month.

Full story at news.com

Business ByDesign overview at sap.com