Why BusinessObjects is Important in 2026

In my last blog, I wrote of the confusion about what happened in 2025 (link at the bottom).  So, I have spent the last few weeks calling organizations about their strategy and plans for 2026.

The majority have said their strategy is to be cautious and keep a close eye on costs until the economic outlook becomes clearer. I am not sure if that clarity will happen.

Being cautious usually translates into not taking risks and watching costs. I have always been a firm believer in Return On Investment (ROI) with any solution. Large software vendors like to measure that in years whereas I prefer to measure it in days or even instantaneously.

So, when organizations tell me they are going to reduce costs by moving from BusinessObjects to Power BI or Tableau, I am not sure if they have really done the math on the ROI.

Firstly, BusinessObjects has only ever been sold as a perpetual license and since most customers purchased it a while ago, they now just pay annual maintenance. When you compare this to the annual subscription-based licensing of Power BI or Tableau, there is no ROI from a license/maintenance fee perspective.

Secondly, most customers use BusinessObjects for operational reporting and have often created reports with complex calculations and business rules. Power BI and Tableau were not designed for this usage. Yes, it can be done, but it will be time consuming and costly to replace these BusinessObjects reports. If they are paginated and need to export to Excel, Tableau does not do this very well and for Power BI you need to use Power BI Report Builder which is a different tool altogether (a port of the old Microsoft Reporting Services product).

There is no way to easily convert BusinessObjects reports and their universes to Power BI or Tableau, and it really is a pointless exercise. It is better to recreate the reports in Power BI or Tableau and look to consolidate and enhance them. This, of course, is also time-consuming and costly.

Thirdly, there is likely to be significant disruption to the business and a loss of some functionality. There is an old adage that says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”. Most of the operational BusinessObjects reports are doing the job they were created to do and placing them under a banner of “legacy debt” is just ignorance.

The roadmap for BusinessObjects goes out into the 2030’s with no plan to ever deprecate it. BI 2025 is the current release with BI 2027 and BI 2029 already in progress. With a huge customer base across every vertical market, a boat load of expertise and a thriving community, it is not only safe to stay on BusinessObjects, but it also makes sound business and financial sense.

So, as we enter another year of economic uncertainty, it is more important than ever not to take risks and to keep costs predictable. That is why BusinessObjects is important in 2026 and for many more years to come.