Scott Elliott

Why Businesses Choose Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports are an application that simplifies reporting needs for businesses.

Crystal Reports is an all inclusive software program designed to design generate business reports, utilizing data garnered from a wide range of sources. Regarded as the ultimate in simple, user friendly general purpose reporting tools, it came to the public's notice when it was bundled with Microsoft's Visual Studio, Eventually it was established as Microsoft's unofficial report writer software application when it began to be released as standard with Visual Basic.

This reporting software was designed and created by the Crystal Services Inc. company, who produced the 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 versions. After the launch of the 3.0 version of Crystal Reports, Crystal Services Inc, was acquired by the Seagate Software Company, who in an obvious intent to identify them with the Crystal concept, changed their name to Crystal Decisions. The new company constantly updated the software, evidenced by the fact that they succeeded in launching a total of six updates of the software. Obviously exhausted by producing so many updates, Crystal Decisions allowed themselves to be acquired by a company known as Business Objects, who in the space of five years, only produced a further three updates, arriving at version 12 in 2007. This was obviously enough for them as they too were acquired by the massive German based business software giant SAP in 2008.

The advantages of this software in the business community are many and multi faceted. If a company has an earlier version of this program, the cost of upgrading is very low, while it is still possible to create a first class report by using even the earliest of versions.

For instance, it was designed with online use in mind, and it is possible to create a report and store it online in its own URL with ease. More than one person can update a report that is online, with the obvious security methods in place that can prevent unauthorized individuals from updating a report and in certain cases, such as internal company reports from even accessing it.

Data from select database sources (Sybase, IBM, DB2, Oracle etc), as well as Excel Spreadsheets, Text files, XML Files are supported by Crystal Report. Simple to operate, Crystal Reports can be run offline, through even the simplest PC as well as online.

There are other report software applications available, yet those in the know still insist that Crystal Report software is the most widely used and still leads the field.

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