Business Objects says integration with Crystal Decisions to follow road less traveled

Business Objects has released a "roadmap" for integrating its business analysis applications with the query and reporting tools it picked up when it acquired Crystal Decisions.

"We've spent the last six months getting input from customers [including manufacturers] to steer future product plans," Lance Walter, a Business Objects product director, recently told MSI. "There's a common false perception that when one company acquires another, one line of products will soon be phased out. We're making our integration roadmap public to assure the customers of both companies that we'll support and develop both lines of products."

Business Objects has outlined a three-phase program for blending product lines. While it would be unusual for an acquired product set to survive long-term, Crystal users shouldn't fear disruptions.

Phase one involves creating a portal that can act as a single interface to version 10 of the Crystal product set and version 6.5 of the Business Objects Enterprise suite. "The common portal [will offer] a single place to sign on, which will make it easy for end users to combine reports with business analytics," says Walter. Phase two should be complete by the end of the year. Says Walter, "Simply put, [this phase] entails supporting core products from both product lines running on a common infrastructure with common administration."

Phase three involves complete integration of Business Objects and Crystal Decisions solutions. This superset of functionality will be available on an enhanced, integrated platform. "It's designed to unify all remaining underlying technology components, and offer smooth transition from prior product lines to complete the gradual integration of the underlying platform components," Walter explains.

This is the point at which most acquiring software vendors convert application sets to their own technology platforms, in effect doing away with most, if not all, of the products of the acquired company. But Walter insists Business Objects won't follow that path.

"Our customers have been clear that they don't want the next big thing that must be rolled out from scratch," he says. "With that in mind, we're working to integrate solutions and enhance capabilities so users can upgrade smoothly to gain functionality while reducing overall cost of ownership."