By far the most serious threat to the dominating role of CrystalReports is MicrosoftCorporation SqlReportingServices. It is "free", addresses enterprise printing/reporting needs, has the world's best promotion company behind it....
A financial analysis firm did a survey in Jun2004 and their results suggested users of CrystalReports are receptive to trying out this new product. See http://www.newratings.com/analyst_news/article_431389.html
Only problem is that it is platform dependent and in particular, DotNet dependent
See a review at http://www.hammerapps.com/techtips/techtipsasp/techtipsdynamic.asp?TTID=228
Other Proprietary competition:
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Oracle Reports, but that is usually part of a bundle.
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MS-Access's reporting tool, but it is not meant for tricky stuff. Nor does it have a web reporting system.
Other commercial report apps:
- Actuate
- ActiveReports
- Bluyah
- http://www.bluyah.com - this is a web-based reporting and data transformation service sold on a subscription basis (they also offer FREE accounts). Can report against a variety of data sources, including database, RSS, and spreadsheet. Simple reporting for screen presentation is a breeze. Additionally, Bluyah allows you to generate more than just "reports" from your data source. Export formats include: charts, Google Maps, marquees (for embedding in websites), CSV and XML. This last format means that Bluyah can be used as a translation layer to pull data out of one system and import it into another system via XML.
- Stonefield Query - Stonefield has created custom reporting solutions forStonefield has created custom reporting solutions for AccountMate, ACT, ALERE, GoldMine, HEAT, Sage Accpac ERP, Sage BusinessVision, Sage Pro ERP, SalesLogix and Timberline.These custom reporting solutions were created using the Stonefield Query SDK.You can use the Stonefield Query SDK to create your own end-user reporting solution for nearly any type of data. Stonefield Query supports Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, DB2, Sybase, Pervasive, Access, FoxPro, and Progress just to name a few! You can even use the SDK to modify our custom solutions, such as adding links to external databases and customizing the data dictionary.
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Cognos ReportNet
Hyperion Reports (acquired Brio)
Information Builders FOCUS and Web FOCUS
Hummingbird Enterprise BI Query
Windward Reports
ColdFusion MX 7.0
RPV Reports
Open source competition:
- XSL-FO + Apache FOP (XslFormattingObjects)
Reports for Non Microsoft Environments Crystal version 10 has a Java based implementation (?separately priced and packaged) that is designed for OS portability.
See ReportWriters
Links to dozens of smaller report tool providers: http://users.pandora.be/stijn.vermeulen/links.htm