Crystal 8.5 and Crystal Enterprise - What about the Small Busin

system · September 20, 2001, 11:11am

Thanx, Steve.
I almost fell over when my boss told me. I don't know if I'll know how to
work without duct tape and bailing wire!
I'll be glad to post anything I think is useful, so long as everyone
promises not to laugh! :-)
Message: 10
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:56:39 -0500
From: "Steve Sanders" <ssanders@...>
Subject: RE: Re: RE:Crystal 8.5 and Crystal Enterprise - What about the
Small Business?

Alan,
Congratulations for showing your company how it can benefit from giving you
the tools to help them succeed!!
I think that the proper way to repay others on the list for their assistance
in getting you there - is by sharing _your_ code with others on the list
once you get on your feet with the development tools!
Again, congratulations! Very cool!
It just goes to show what we can do with the power of knowledge sharing!
======================
Steve Sanders
Delta Centrifugal Corp
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Williams [mailto:awilliams@...]
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 9:46 AM
To: vantage@Yahoogroups. com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: RE:Crystal 8.5 and Crystal Enterprise - What about
the Small Business?

Hi, Jill.
No problem. First off, I wrote a batch file containing these lines:
cls
cd\
cd progra~1
cd intern~1
iexplore.exe rptsvr/SCIWeb/SOSummry.rpt

Where "rptsvr/sciweb/SoSummry.rpt" is the share and path to the crystal
report, then altered the extrnalprog.p ( See the file under "Progress
Code"
named "UDSOSummry.p" for the details.) Then I added it to Vantage as a
menu
item with the path "ud/udSOSummry.p", checking the "Run Persistent" flag.
It's accessible from Win95 through 2kPro. I don't know if I went the long
way around to do this, but it works, so I'm not gonna try to fix it.
I have to add that after seeing what can be done with the code
provided by
everyone (with credit going to the people who actually wrote the code), my
boss decided to spring for a Provision license and some training for me.
I
haven't decided how to PROPERLY thank everyone for that yet...
-----------Original Message-------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 20:40:49 -0000
From: jpleau@...
Subject: Re: RE:Crystal 8.5 and Crystal Enterprise - What about the Small
Business?

I, also, love my web server. My users, however, are not so
impressed. If they were able to access these reports from the
Vantage menu though..... Where can I get info about externalprog.p?
Thanks, Jill

Thanx,
Alan

system · September 18, 2001, 7:09am

To all,

The following is an open letter that I have sent primarily to Small
Businesses who use Crystal Reports, as a caution against Crystal Decisions'
pricing of their Enterprise web distribution product.

So far, it is planned that the letter will go to the following
organizations, who's Users are known to use Crystal Reports and other
Crystal Decisions reporting products:-

Crystal Decisions
Epicor
Epicor User Group Europe
Epicor User Group USA
Kensington Marketing Systems
Kensington Marketing Systems User Group

To all users of Crystal Reports and other Crystal Decisions products,

I would like to take a moment of your time to inform you of the development
of Crystal Reports, and particularly Crystal Enterprise that comes with
it in version 8.5.

Crystal Decisions are now quite rightfully pushing their web distribution
system as a separate product. We have been fortunate in the past to have
this functionality for free with the Web Component Server, which came as
part of Crystal Reports in previous versions.

Now, however, if you want to use the web as a serious distribution means for
your reports, you have to upgrade to Crystal Enterprise Professional, which
costs $1000 per license. In the UK, until the 26th September, the minimum
license purchase is three, after that it will be TEN.

This will be $10000 to upgrade just to get such basic features as Windows NT
Authorisation into your reporting environment.

For our company, as a small business, that is all I require. Web reporting
with NT Authorisation. And that will cost me $3000 now, or $10000 in
October.

Maintenance is charged at 25% of your license costs.
Support is charged at 25% of your license costs.

You can, though, take these out at a later date, but another concern is that
Crystal Decisions, I have been told, expect to have 2 new versions of the
product in the next year, so if you do not take out maintenance, you are
obviously then locked out of the upgrade path.

A further concern is that the person I spoke to at Crystal Decisions did not
know if the basic Crystal Enterprise product will always be bundled with
Crystal Reports.

TO SUMMARIZE

It seems that the Crystal Enterprise product is locking out small business
users. The pricing schemes and minimum license purchases are certainly not
taking into account the small business, many of which have used the Web
Compenent Server for some time.

It is understandable that with Crystal Enterprise being an increasingly
powerful product, that Crystal Decisions should market and price it as an
individual product, however us small businesses at present are not catered
for.

I have suggested to Crystal Decisions that there is room for a product
called "Crystal Enterprise Small Business", which would offer web
distribution coupled with NT Authorisation, and perhaps some other basic
features, that would keep small businesses using the product whilst offering
an upgrade path should their reporting environment become a more complex
one.

The purpose of this letter is to inform you of the path that the Crystal
Enterprise product is currently taking, and to establish support for a
version of the product whose functionality, pricing and minimum licensing
requirements are in keeping with the requirements and budgets of Small
Businesses.

Any feedback indicating your support or otherwise for these proposals, will
be most welcome.

Anton Wilson,
Systems Analyst,
Deanestor Ltd
United Kingdom

e-mail it@...
Tel +44 (0)1623 420041
Fax +44 (0)1623 420061

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

system · September 18, 2001, 7:31am

I guess we're going to get our pocket picked AGAIN. Figures.

Shirley H. Graver
(End User)
Systems Administrator
Rubber Associates Inc.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

system · September 18, 2001, 2:32pm

I agree wholeheartedly, Anton. I've been deluged with calls from Crystal
re upgrading from 8.0, only the price I was quoted was US $2495 per. We
love the web server, especially now that we can add reports directly to the
main Vantage menu via the externalprog.p that was posted (Thank you, whoever
you are!). However, due to the exorbitant cost, we won't be upgrading any
time soon, if at all. A "Small Business Edition" would be a useful option
to have.

Alan Williams
Vantage Admin
Ozark Mountain Enterprises
-----------Original Message---------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:24:48 -0700
From: "Anton Wilson" <it@...>
Subject: Crystal 8.5 and Crystal Enterprise - What about the Small Business?

To all,

The following is an open letter that I have sent primarily to Small
Businesses who use Crystal Reports, as a caution against Crystal Decisions'
pricing of their Enterprise web distribution product.

So far, it is planned that the letter will go to the following
organizations, who's Users are known to use Crystal Reports and other
Crystal Decisions reporting products:-

Crystal Decisions
Epicor
Epicor User Group Europe
Epicor User Group USA
Kensington Marketing Systems
Kensington Marketing Systems User Group

To all users of Crystal Reports and other Crystal Decisions products,

I would like to take a moment of your time to inform you of the development
of Crystal Reports, and particularly Crystal Enterprise that comes with
it in version 8.5.

Crystal Decisions are now quite rightfully pushing their web distribution
system as a separate product. We have been fortunate in the past to have
this functionality for free with the Web Component Server, which came as
part of Crystal Reports in previous versions.

Now, however, if you want to use the web as a serious distribution means for
your reports, you have to upgrade to Crystal Enterprise Professional, which
costs $1000 per license. In the UK, until the 26th September, the minimum
license purchase is three, after that it will be TEN.

This will be $10000 to upgrade just to get such basic features as Windows NT
Authorisation into your reporting environment.

For our company, as a small business, that is all I require. Web reporting
with NT Authorisation. And that will cost me $3000 now, or $10000 in
October.

Maintenance is charged at 25% of your license costs.
Support is charged at 25% of your license costs.

You can, though, take these out at a later date, but another concern is that
Crystal Decisions, I have been told, expect to have 2 new versions of the
product in the next year, so if you do not take out maintenance, you are
obviously then locked out of the upgrade path.

A further concern is that the person I spoke to at Crystal Decisions did not
know if the basic Crystal Enterprise product will always be bundled with
Crystal Reports.

TO SUMMARIZE

It seems that the Crystal Enterprise product is locking out small business
users. The pricing schemes and minimum license purchases are certainly not
taking into account the small business, many of which have used the Web
Compenent Server for some time.

It is understandable that with Crystal Enterprise being an increasingly
powerful product, that Crystal Decisions should market and price it as an
individual product, however us small businesses at present are not catered
for.

I have suggested to Crystal Decisions that there is room for a product
called "Crystal Enterprise Small Business", which would offer web
distribution coupled with NT Authorisation, and perhaps some other basic
features, that would keep small businesses using the product whilst offering
an upgrade path should their reporting environment become a more complex
one.

The purpose of this letter is to inform you of the path that the Crystal
Enterprise product is currently taking, and to establish support for a
version of the product whose functionality, pricing and minimum licensing
requirements are in keeping with the requirements and budgets of Small
Businesses.

Any feedback indicating your support or otherwise for these proposals, will
be most welcome.

Anton Wilson,
Systems Analyst,
Deanestor Ltd
United Kingdom

e-mail it@...
Tel +44 (0)1623 420041
Fax +44 (0)1623 420061

system · September 18, 2001, 3:00pm

I agree the costs are outrageous. At this point Crystal Enterprise (the CR 8.5 version of Crystal Web Component) that was bundled "free" with 8.5 Profession has 5 user licenses included. This means practically that no more than reports (no matter if it's one user or five accessing them) can be ACCESSING reports at the same time. Once the report is on the screen, that report is no linger ACCESSING the dabase. In our (almost) year of using Crystal Enterprise, we have never had more than five reports running at the same time. We have about 40 Crystal reports that could be accessed, and probably 20 user that have access to them. Perhaps in the future this could be a problem, but with most reports taking under a minute to run, you shouldn't have to wait long to get a license back again.

I don't know whether Crystal Enterprise will be sold separately in the future or not. Hopefully it will continue to be offered in the bundle.

Troy Funte
Liberty Electronics

----- Original Message -----
From: Alan Williams
To: vantage@Yahoogroups. com
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 2:32 PM
Subject: [Vantage] RE:Crystal 8.5 and Crystal Enterprise - What about the Small Business?

I agree wholeheartedly, Anton. I've been deluged with calls from Crystal
re upgrading from 8.0, only the price I was quoted was US $2495 per. We
love the web server, especially now that we can add reports directly to the
main Vantage menu via the externalprog.p that was posted (Thank you, whoever
you are!). However, due to the exorbitant cost, we won't be upgrading any
time soon, if at all. A "Small Business Edition" would be a useful option
to have.

Alan Williams
Vantage Admin
Ozark Mountain Enterprises
-----------Original Message---------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:24:48 -0700
From: "Anton Wilson" <it@...>
Subject: Crystal 8.5 and Crystal Enterprise - What about the Small Business?

To all,

The following is an open letter that I have sent primarily to Small
Businesses who use Crystal Reports, as a caution against Crystal Decisions'
pricing of their Enterprise web distribution product.

So far, it is planned that the letter will go to the following
organizations, who's Users are known to use Crystal Reports and other
Crystal Decisions reporting products:-

Crystal Decisions
Epicor
Epicor User Group Europe
Epicor User Group USA
Kensington Marketing Systems
Kensington Marketing Systems User Group

To all users of Crystal Reports and other Crystal Decisions products,

I would like to take a moment of your time to inform you of the development
of Crystal Reports, and particularly Crystal Enterprise that comes with
it in version 8.5.

Crystal Decisions are now quite rightfully pushing their web distribution
system as a separate product. We have been fortunate in the past to have
this functionality for free with the Web Component Server, which came as
part of Crystal Reports in previous versions.

Now, however, if you want to use the web as a serious distribution means for
your reports, you have to upgrade to Crystal Enterprise Professional, which
costs $1000 per license. In the UK, until the 26th September, the minimum
license purchase is three, after that it will be TEN.

This will be $10000 to upgrade just to get such basic features as Windows NT
Authorisation into your reporting environment.

For our company, as a small business, that is all I require. Web reporting
with NT Authorisation. And that will cost me $3000 now, or $10000 in
October.

Maintenance is charged at 25% of your license costs.
Support is charged at 25% of your license costs.

You can, though, take these out at a later date, but another concern is that
Crystal Decisions, I have been told, expect to have 2 new versions of the
product in the next year, so if you do not take out maintenance, you are
obviously then locked out of the upgrade path.

A further concern is that the person I spoke to at Crystal Decisions did not
know if the basic Crystal Enterprise product will always be bundled with
Crystal Reports.

TO SUMMARIZE

It seems that the Crystal Enterprise product is locking out small business
users. The pricing schemes and minimum license purchases are certainly not
taking into account the small business, many of which have used the Web
Compenent Server for some time.

It is understandable that with Crystal Enterprise being an increasingly
powerful product, that Crystal Decisions should market and price it as an
individual product, however us small businesses at present are not catered
for.

I have suggested to Crystal Decisions that there is room for a product
called "Crystal Enterprise Small Business", which would offer web
distribution coupled with NT Authorisation, and perhaps some other basic
features, that would keep small businesses using the product whilst offering
an upgrade path should their reporting environment become a more complex
one.

The purpose of this letter is to inform you of the path that the Crystal
Enterprise product is currently taking, and to establish support for a
version of the product whose functionality, pricing and minimum licensing
requirements are in keeping with the requirements and budgets of Small
Businesses.

Any feedback indicating your support or otherwise for these proposals, will
be most welcome.

Anton Wilson,
Systems Analyst,
Deanestor Ltd
United Kingdom

e-mail it@...
Tel +44 (0)1623 420041
Fax +44 (0)1623 420061

Yahoo! Groups Sponsor

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

system · September 18, 2001, 4:40pm

I, also, love my web server. My users, however, are not so
impressed. If they were able to access these reports from the
Vantage menu though..... Where can I get info about externalprog.p?
Thanks, Jill

--- In vantage@y..., "Alan Williams" <awilliams@s...> wrote:
> I agree wholeheartedly, Anton. I've been deluged with calls
from Crystal
> re upgrading from 8.0, only the price I was quoted was US $2495
per. We
> love the web server, especially now that we can add reports
directly to the
> main Vantage menu via the externalprog.p that was posted (Thank
you, whoever
> you are!). However, due to the exorbitant cost, we won't be
upgrading any
> time soon, if at all. A "Small Business Edition" would be a useful
option
> to have.
>
> Alan Williams
> Vantage Admin
> Ozark Mountain Enterprises
> -----------Original Message---------------
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:24:48 -0700
> From: "Anton Wilson" <it@d...>
> Subject: Crystal 8.5 and Crystal Enterprise - What about the Small
Business?
>
> To all,
>
> The following is an open letter that I have sent primarily to Small
> Businesses who use Crystal Reports, as a caution against Crystal
Decisions'
> pricing of their Enterprise web distribution product.
>
> So far, it is planned that the letter will go to the following
> organizations, who's Users are known to use Crystal Reports and
other
> Crystal Decisions reporting products:-
>
>
> Crystal Decisions
> Epicor
> Epicor User Group Europe
> Epicor User Group USA
> Kensington Marketing Systems
> Kensington Marketing Systems User Group
>
>
>
> To all users of Crystal Reports and other Crystal Decisions
products,
>
> I would like to take a moment of your time to inform you of the
development
> of Crystal Reports, and particularly Crystal Enterprise that comes
with
> it in version 8.5.
>
> Crystal Decisions are now quite rightfully pushing their web
distribution
> system as a separate product. We have been fortunate in the past
to have
> this functionality for free with the Web Component Server, which
came as
> part of Crystal Reports in previous versions.
>
> Now, however, if you want to use the web as a serious distribution
means for
> your reports, you have to upgrade to Crystal Enterprise
Professional, which
> costs $1000 per license. In the UK, until the 26th September, the
minimum
> license purchase is three, after that it will be TEN.
>
> This will be $10000 to upgrade just to get such basic features as
Windows NT
> Authorisation into your reporting environment.
>
> For our company, as a small business, that is all I require. Web
reporting
> with NT Authorisation. And that will cost me $3000 now, or $10000
in
> October.
>
> Maintenance is charged at 25% of your license costs.
> Support is charged at 25% of your license costs.
>
> You can, though, take these out at a later date, but another
concern is that
> Crystal Decisions, I have been told, expect to have 2 new versions
of the
> product in the next year, so if you do not take out maintenance,
you are
> obviously then locked out of the upgrade path.
>
> A further concern is that the person I spoke to at Crystal
Decisions did not
> know if the basic Crystal Enterprise product will always be bundled
with
> Crystal Reports.
>
>
> TO SUMMARIZE
>
> It seems that the Crystal Enterprise product is locking out small
business
> users. The pricing schemes and minimum license purchases are
certainly not
> taking into account the small business, many of which have used the
Web
> Compenent Server for some time.
>
> It is understandable that with Crystal Enterprise being an
increasingly
> powerful product, that Crystal Decisions should market and price it
as an
> individual product, however us small businesses at present are not
catered
> for.
>
> I have suggested to Crystal Decisions that there is room for a
product
> called "Crystal Enterprise Small Business", which would offer web
> distribution coupled with NT Authorisation, and perhaps some other
basic
> features, that would keep small businesses using the product whilst
offering
> an upgrade path should their reporting environment become a more
complex
> one.
>
> The purpose of this letter is to inform you of the path that the
Crystal
> Enterprise product is currently taking, and to establish support
for a
> version of the product whose functionality, pricing and minimum
licensing
> requirements are in keeping with the requirements and budgets of
Small
> Businesses.
>
> Any feedback indicating your support or otherwise for these
proposals, will
> be most welcome.
>
>
> Anton Wilson,
> Systems Analyst,
> Deanestor Ltd
> United Kingdom
>
> e-mail it@d...
> Tel +44 (0)1623 420041
> Fax +44 (0)1623 420061

system · September 19, 2001, 10:46am

Hi, Jill.
No problem. First off, I wrote a batch file containing these lines:
cls
cd\
cd progra~1
cd intern~1
iexplore.exe rptsvr/SCIWeb/SOSummry.rpt

Where "rptsvr/sciweb/SoSummry.rpt" is the share and path to the crystal
report, then altered the extrnalprog.p ( See the file under "Progress Code"
named "UDSOSummry.p" for the details.) Then I added it to Vantage as a menu
item with the path "ud/udSOSummry.p", checking the "Run Persistent" flag.
It's accessible from Win95 through 2kPro. I don't know if I went the long
way around to do this, but it works, so I'm not gonna try to fix it.
I have to add that after seeing what can be done with the code provided by
everyone (with credit going to the people who actually wrote the code), my
boss decided to spring for a Provision license and some training for me. I
haven't decided how to PROPERLY thank everyone for that yet...
-----------Original Message-------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 20:40:49 -0000
From: jpleau@...
Subject: Re: RE:Crystal 8.5 and Crystal Enterprise - What about the Small
Business?

I, also, love my web server. My users, however, are not so
impressed. If they were able to access these reports from the
Vantage menu though..... Where can I get info about externalprog.p?
Thanks, Jill

--- In vantage@y..., "Alan Williams" <awilliams@s...> wrote:
> I agree wholeheartedly, Anton. I've been deluged with calls
from Crystal
> re upgrading from 8.0, only the price I was quoted was US $2495
per. We
> love the web server, especially now that we can add reports
directly to the
> main Vantage menu via the externalprog.p that was posted (Thank
you, whoever
> you are!). However, due to the exorbitant cost, we won't be
upgrading any
> time soon, if at all. A "Small Business Edition" would be a useful
option
> to have.
>
> Alan Williams
> Vantage Admin
> Ozark Mountain Enterprises
Thanx,
Alan

system · September 19, 2001, 12:21pm

Alan,
Congratulations for showing your company how it can benefit from giving you
the tools to help them succeed!!
I think that the proper way to repay others on the list for their assistance
in getting you there - is by sharing _your_ code with others on the list
once you get on your feet with the development tools!
Again, congratulations! Very cool!
It just goes to show what we can do with the power of knowledge sharing!
======================
Steve Sanders
Delta Centrifugal Corp
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Williams [mailto:awilliams@...]
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 9:46 AM
To: vantage@Yahoogroups. com
Subject: [Vantage] Re: RE:Crystal 8.5 and Crystal Enterprise - What about
the Small Business?

Hi, Jill.
No problem. First off, I wrote a batch file containing these lines:
cls
cd\
cd progra~1
cd intern~1
iexplore.exe rptsvr/SCIWeb/SOSummry.rpt

Where "rptsvr/sciweb/SoSummry.rpt" is the share and path to the crystal
report, then altered the extrnalprog.p ( See the file under "Progress
Code"
named "UDSOSummry.p" for the details.) Then I added it to Vantage as a
menu
item with the path "ud/udSOSummry.p", checking the "Run Persistent" flag.
It's accessible from Win95 through 2kPro. I don't know if I went the long
way around to do this, but it works, so I'm not gonna try to fix it.
I have to add that after seeing what can be done with the code
provided by
everyone (with credit going to the people who actually wrote the code), my
boss decided to spring for a Provision license and some training for me.
I
haven't decided how to PROPERLY thank everyone for that yet...
-----------Original Message-------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 20:40:49 -0000
From: jpleau@...
Subject: Re: RE:Crystal 8.5 and Crystal Enterprise - What about the Small
Business?

I, also, love my web server. My users, however, are not so
impressed. If they were able to access these reports from the
Vantage menu though..... Where can I get info about externalprog.p?
Thanks, Jill

--- In vantage@y..., "Alan Williams" <awilliams@s...> wrote:
> I agree wholeheartedly, Anton. I've been deluged with calls
from Crystal
> re upgrading from 8.0, only the price I was quoted was US $2495
per. We
> love the web server, especially now that we can add reports
directly to the
> main Vantage menu via the externalprog.p that was posted (Thank
you, whoever
> you are!). However, due to the exorbitant cost, we won't be
upgrading any
> time soon, if at all. A "Small Business Edition" would be a useful
option
> to have.
>
> Alan Williams
> Vantage Admin
> Ozark Mountain Enterprises
Thanx,
Alan

Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT

Useful links for the Yahoo!Groups Vantage Board are: ( Note: You must
have already linked your email address to a yahoo id to enable access. )
(1) To access the Files Section of our Yahoo!Group for Report Builder and
Crystal Reports and other 'goodies', please goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/files/.
(2) To search through old msg's goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/messages
(3) To view links to Vendors that provide Vantage services goto:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vantage/links

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]