I managed to pull the fender off and made it to work on time. The Rabbit never needed any body repairs, it was built for Boston traffic and I nicknamed it “Bruiser.”

So, when I ask customers, “What was the best BusinessObjects software release you ever had?”, they will usually respond with the release that they kept the longest time and was the most reliable. They rarely pick a release that they adopted early in its release cycle, which is not really surprising, since you would expect the most issues to occur within the first 6 to 12 months. Microsoft has taught us to wait until at least the first, if not the second, service pack before looking to deploy a new software release.

So, with that preamble, what does the new release of BusinessObjects, namely XI 3.0, have in store for us? Well, it does have a lot of neat, new features and functionality. It really builds on the previous XI R1 and R2 releases to further fill out the new combined BusinessObjects and Crystal offerings.

One of the most prominent pieces of XI 3.0 is a new release of Web Intelligence that includes a stand-alone Rich Client function, allowing you to use Webi off-line. It also has a really cool Data Tracking feature, so you can see data changes on a report between two versions and some very slick Extension Points, providing customization capabilities to enhance and integrate Web Intelligence with your existing applications. In addition, you can now use personal data providers, like Excel and Text Files.

There is also a new version of Xcelsius, called Xcelsius 2008, with a new flex based interface, new components, an integrated development environment, allowing you to view the dashboard you are creating and the Excel model on the screen at the same time, and new Software Development Kits (SDK’s), to include external components and build your own customized connectivity.

Another cool, new product in XI 3.0 is “BI Widgets,” a really nifty, new tool that allows you to publish Xcelsius and Web Intelligence components on your Windows desktop, so that these BI visualizations (gauge, moving graph, etc.), are permanently “on” to provide constant monitoring of key metrics and information.

On the BOE infrastructure side, there are also lots of improvements. Better publishing capabilities for Crystal Reports and Web Intelligence, a redesigned Central Management Console with new navigation and workflows, a new Federation component for distributed environments that allows replication of BI content between BO systems.

XI 3.0 also brings better integration with SAP, which will certainly be a consistent theme going forward for the whole BO product suite. On the Enterprise Information Management front, we will see the emergence of Data Services XI 3.0 that combines both Data Integrator and Data Quality into a single runtime engine with one common development interface.

So, as you can see, there is a lot there, but the big question is, “Is it ready for prime time production?” The simple answer today is that we do not know. Many customers are downloading trial versions and starting to “kick the tires.” This is a great idea. The current version only supports the Java client and not ASP.net, but that is supposed to be coming shortly. The integration of Crystal Reports 2008 into BOE is also supposed to be coming soon. We saw this type of staggered release schedule of functionality for XI R2. There is nothing wrong with this approach, as most customers prefer that new functionality is not made available until it has been thoroughly tested.

Will BO XI 3.0 become your favorite release of BusinessObjects ever? We will have to see, but as for me, just like my Volkswagen Rabbit, I will want to wait until somebody else has put 85,000 miles on it first.

For more information on BusinessObjects XI 3.0, e-mail infosol@infosol.com.