We have all heard of SAP acquisition of BO,Outlooksoft and HANA. For BO,the impact hits directly on the SAP Bex frontend tools as it will replace Bex query and WAD as the frontend reporting tool. But there is still a lot to work on the integration part between BI7 backend and BO in which we are still seeing Bex query as a much needed component to integrate the customer exit and authorization portion with the BI7 backend engine. Universe is still build on Bex query, and it is required for Webi and Xcelsius via QAAWS to read the dataset.But in BO4, the universe layer is eliminated, as in the Bex query integrate directly with Webi and Xcelsius. Before BO acquisition, SAP never has a true dashboard tool and this position Xcelsius as the strategic dashboard tool for SAP.
As for acquisition of Outlooksoft, SAP has already build a strong integration of the new BPC tool with the netweaver platform. BPC will be a poweful budgeting and consolidation tool that leverage on excel and netweaver platform. But a lot of customers on BI-IP and SEM-BCS are quite reluctant to transition their existing budgeting and consolidation tool as that would merely means a whole new setup and deployment in the wide organization. There is not any direct linkage between BI-IP, SEM-BCS and BPC. They are completely different tools altogether, meaning there isn't any real transition, it means replacement.
It took quite a while for HANA to evolve when SAP bought over Transactions In Memory. But ever since BO acquisition and cost of hardware storage become more affordable,the future of SAP BI is starting to piece all the new products acquisition into picture as we are now seeing HANA to tap into huge volumes of detailed information directly to access real time data. HANA is expected to include BICS,SQL and MDX interfaces, meaning that it can be easily dropped into BO environments to dramatically improve performance. Some BO analyses, whether in the BO web client interface or in Advanced Analysis can achieve optimized reporting capability through HANA.
Many BW consultants are in pressure to move into BOBJ and HANA platform so to catch up with the desired skillsets in the future job demand. Some of the info in the links below provide some clarity on the whole transition from SAP Bex to BO as well as the positioning of HANA and the BW backend.
Business Objects vs. BEX
Is upgrading to SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.0 right for you?
SAP BI roadmap one year later: How's Business Objects working out for SAP BI customers?
Customers express hopes for, concerns about SAP BusinessObjects 4.0
What to do with BEx tools in a BOBJ world?
SAP: Don't rush from SAP BEx tools to SAP BusinessObjects
HANA and BW 7.30
SAP HANA Overview & Roadmap
Will HANA eliminate the need for BW?
Why SAP HANA should start replacing SAP BW?
When it comes to in memory data modelling, this is the part I am a bit confuse. How is SAP going to integrate and maximize the features of SAP BODS and Hana Studio.
We have also heard of Rapid Application Development. The objective of such tool is to enable customer to deliver something fast within the company's budget. The tool is bundled into most of the stuffs the user can use out of the box with some configuration on the master data and authorization being the biggest chunk of work there is. A good example is the SRM BI module called Spend Performance Management. The dashboards and reports are made available in the package and data is retrive directly from the ERP via Data Integrator. Now, that put SAP BW closer to the space of legacy tools.
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