Seeking to significantly expand the market for business intelligence tools and services, SAP today rolled out a new cloud-based offering that replaces two existing software-as-a-service (SaaS) BI products.
The company’s new SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand offering is targeted at line-of-business users who may perform data analysis using personal spreadsheets rather than secure BI tools, company officials said.
The product includes wizards that easily guide novice BI users. It also lets users combine and analyze data sets from on-premise systems, such as SAP’s ERP applications and cloud-based data, as well as share data, dashboards, and other types of visualizations online. The product incorporates BusinessObjects Explorer, the data exploration and visualization tool SAP launched last year.
SAP BusinessObjects BI OnDemand replaces both SAP’s CrystalReports.com SaaS offering and the company’s first-generation cloud-based BI product, also named BI OnDemand. CrystalReports.com has been available since 2006, while BI OnDemand debuted in 2007. Combined, those services have about 260,000 subscribers, SAP said.