Seagate software has announced the release of Crystal Reports version 8. The new version is a complete overhaul of its predecessor, and is probably the best known reporting software for Windows.
Version 8 will be released as three editions, standard, professional and developer, allowing different users to select the most appropriate package for their needs.
Neither the standard nor the professional version offers any of the developer utilities, with which Crystal Reports became well known through an OEM deal with Microsoft that bundled the software with Visual Basic. This deal still exists, and Visual Basic 6 comes bundled with Crystal Reports version 4.6.
According to Vivek Thomas, regional manager for Africa and the Middle East, Seagate`s reporting software is the only suite of products that "meets the needs of business users from the desktop to the enterprise". Crystal Reports fits into Seagate`s spectrum of reporting tools with Seagate Info and Seagate Holos.
New to version 8 is tight integration with Microsoft Office 2000, including a new look and feel that gives the business user the familiar Office 2000 interface, where new reporting tools have been added and enhanced to make the sharing of reports easier. A download from the company`s site also allows reports to be published in Acrobat format.
"We are now 100% focused on the business intelligence market," says Thomas. The company believes the software will sell itself, and will accordingly not make evaluation copies available. Thomas notes that the company has embarked on a 30-day refund policy instead.
Information can be imported from Microsoft Word, or a report generated from Excel, which allows a report to be generated from within a spreadsheet.
The standard and professional editions differ in data base connectivity options. The standard edition can only connect to desktop databases, while the professional edition gives access to ODBC and other professional database server sources. Additionally, the professional and developer editions have access to advanced OLAP analysis tools such as data cubes.
For the developer, the functionality of the professional edition is enhanced with an open developer API. This means that reports can be customised by end-users to suit their own presentation and filtering needs.
Another development is the compatibility of Crystal Report`s macro language with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Though Seagate does not use the VBA engine, its scripting utilises the same syntax as VB; this adds the possibility of even greater integration with other products that use VBA.
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