Product to Use if i am a Small BOBJ Customer

Note: All the costs are indicative costs and need to be discussed between the client and SAP to get an exact price quote.

Scenario:

• There will be approximately 5-10 users for the system. Most of the users will have report viewer/ refresher rights however some users can create adhoc reports and one or two user can administer the system.
• Instead of a tactical solution (like installing software’s on users machine) the project is looking for a more enterprise solution deployed over the internet and can be ramped up if required in future.
• Project would like to utilize the existing infrastructure available if possible and maintenance cost should be lower on the long run.
• Cost is an important factor for deciding the product selection (reporting tool) for this project.

Following are the options available if you use Business Objects:

Option 1:

Buy an enterprise ‘Edge’ license for Business Objects product suite.

Cost :

·         £10000 for license approx (NOTE this is not a SAP quoted price)

·         Extra cost for infrastructure

·         Installation and configuration cost

·         Software maintenance cost (over the lifecycle of the project)

Pros :

·         This is an fully flexible enterprise solution and is one of the best solution available in the market.

·         Most of the products in SAP BO product suite will be available if you buy this license (like Webi, crystal report, CMC, universe, dashboard etc)

Cons :

·         Cost of software procurement, infrastructure procurement, maintenance and support is high.

Option 2:

Buy “BI Ondemand” solution for SAP.

Cost (before discount): (NOTE this is not a SAP quoted price)

·         20-50 euro per month per report user

·         60-100 euro per month per developer

·         1000-2000 euro per month per administrator

Approx : 1500-3000 euro for a month based on a minimum 10 licence purchase.

Pros:

·         No need to have any infrastructure as this will be hosted on the cloud

·         No need to buy software (webi, crystal report, BO explorer etc)

·         No need to maintain software upgrades, patches etc

·         Report is available securely from anywhere if you have internet access.

·         Is scalable

·         Can be used as ‘pay per user’ basis if extra users are added in future 

BI On demand gives all the flexibility of Business Objects enterprise solution and is considered as a opex and not a capex spend.

Cons:

·         Data will be hosted in a datacentre supported by SAP. This is done by transferring data from the client system to the SAP supported data centre through secured connection.

Option 3:

Buy crystal report client product for developers. Crystal report viewer can be downloaded to view these report. Crystal report viewer is available free on SAP website.

Cost :

·         About £300 pounds per user (NOTE this is not a SAP quoted price)

·         Some software maintenance and support cost.

Pros :

·         Cheapest option available in the market

·         Can be deployed and configured on developer machines quite quickly

·         No extra infrastructure cost

Cons:

·         This is a tactical solution and not an enterprise solution

·         Adhoc report generation and report refresh is not possible.

·         Cost of development is usually higher (if Crystal report development knowledge is not already there in the Organisation)

Option 4:

Buy crystal report server product.

Cost :

·         Not sure about the exact cost but as per the rate chart it can be much higher than crystal report client product.

·         Extra cost for infrastructure

·         Installation and configuration cost

·         Software maintenance cost (over the lifecycle of the project)

Pros :

·         This is an fully flexible enterprise solution

Cons :

·         Cost of software procurement, infrastructure procurement, maintenance and support is high.