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SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs ibi WebFOCUS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

ibi WebFOCUS
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Predictive Analytics (7th), Embedded BI (10th)
SAP BusinessObjects Busines...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
103
Ranking in other categories
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Business Intelligence solutions, they serve different purposes. ibi WebFOCUS is designed for Predictive Analytics and holds a mindshare of 1.1%, down 1.8% compared to last year.
SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform, on the other hand, focuses on BI (Business Intelligence) Tools, holds 4.0% mindshare, down 5.5% since last year.
Predictive Analytics
BI (Business Intelligence) Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

Ariel Lindenfeld - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 28, 2014
 

Featured Reviews

Twanette Jurd - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence, reporting, data integration, ETL, data migration - everything is handled within one unified platform and highly scalable solution.
WebFOCUS goes beyond just dashboards. It's also used for operational reporting, making it crucial for mission-critical systems. In fact, a core strength is that it's not "just" a BI tool; it can be used to build complete applications. It is the best tool because of its all-in-one nature. Data integration, ETL, data migration, everything is handled within the same platform. Then, on the front end, it offers portals, reporting, distributed analysis, and more. For customers who have data in the right structure and right format, the WebFOCUS Designer tool is very powerful. It allows them to create self-service reporting applications.
Sumeet  Zalpuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Fully integrated enterprise-level tool
The initial setup was not straightforward. Since it is a complete enterprise tool, it needs a certain level of expertise to set up the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. There are a lot of steps involved. You need to get the user accepted and you need to validate the data. So you need to understand the architecture of the application. I would rate the initial setup as moderate since it's not very easy or much difficult. For a small enterprise, the installation would take one day. You must ensure you are on a supported platform like Windows or Linux and if your database is not on the server but in a different zone of the network, you need to ensure connectivity. You must also ensure the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform supports your organization's browser. These are the major things that must be taken care of before the installation. Around 500 users are using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform in my company. We are a team of around eight technical people involved in the deployment and maintenance of the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. If you run a SAP shop with ECC, the best solution is the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform because it's tightly integrated. You'll get lots of offers from SAP when it comes to licensing. So there's an advantage. But if you are not a SAP shop, the licensing becomes a hindrance. So if you have SAP as a source, then I recommend people to go with SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform as it's a tool that works wonders. I have been working on POCs where we use SAP data for BI, which was a nightmare. So if you have ECC and SAP in the back end, go with the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform. If you have any other tools in the back end, then try to negotiate and see the use case.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It stands out for its ability to work across different platforms, support mainframe data, offer cloud integration, automate report scheduling, and provide a robust scripting language."
"The most valuable feature is building ad hoc reports."
"The solution can read and write 500 different types of outputs."
"I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. It's highly scalable and can handle significant data volumes."
"Through the use of Business Intelligence reporting and scheduling features, reports are generated and automatically sent according to a schedule. This has freed up countless hours spent performing the same tasks, month over month."
"The platform uses a lot of Java technologies so the performance and system-level management are tricky because it needs a lot of resources."
"The development using SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is very good."
"The solution can scale."
"I have seen improvement in our work after using the solution."
"I like the fact that we can integrate it seamlessly within our Epic environment, but probably the best thing that Crystal Reports offers is the ability to do visualizations. They're simple to do, and they're catchy. So, it is a really great tool."
"The platform is a complete enterprise-level tool where everything is integrated to suffice your requirement."
"Enables us to present data with Smart Objects that can be embedded within presentations and which automatically update when the presentations are run."
 

Cons

"If there were to be any improvements right now, their documentation needs to get in sync with their product."
"The challenge lies not in what the tool can do but in how you use it and understand the data."
"The solution can be improved by adding more automated options for reporting."
"When it comes to customer support, we don't always reach the right person. Sometimes, we get junior-level reps who aren't as knowledgeable as we are."
"The dashboard tool is called Lumira and it is very uncomfortable for developers to use. They should improve this in the future."
"The self-service area, or dashboard, needs some improvement. While the reporting itself is great, the dashboard and Analytics Cloud are not user friendly."
"It is not simple to use."
"There is room for improvement in providing more user-friendly and versatile reporting options."
"The user interface should be easier to use and navigate."
"Factoring in total implementation and maintenance costs, SAP BusinessObjects is too expensive. If you deal with a huge amount of data, you can go with BusinessObjects. However, if you are a medium-sized company with a modest amount of data, you can opt for another solution."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform should be made easier for the end-users and the performance could be improved."
"Over the years, the product tends to rename and rebrand itself and change its direction. This is a deficit of the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform is an expensive application."
"SAP is losing market to its competitors because of its costly user license and licensing model. They can do much better on the licensing side. That's what Microsoft has been doing, and that's why Power BI is gaining market share at the moment. SAP needs to relax a little bit on the licensing part. If Microsoft is giving people a solution that is half of the cost of SAP, people will definitely go with Power BI."
"It is not cost-effective. It is expensive."
"Just work with SAP to make sure you have enough licenses but don't go overboard."
"There is an annual license to use SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform."
"Depending on your size, try to stick with SAP BusinessObjects BI Edge. Most people tend to overthink the licensing. Remember that one concurrent user means that one person can be performing a task at a given time. That does not mean that only one user can be on the system at a time, it means that only one person can be refreshing a report or designing a dashboard. There are tons of ways you can access your data or reports without consuming a license. I've seen cases where five concurrent licenses support thousands of users."
"​It is not an expensive platform. The licensing is for a package of users starting at 10 users."
"The price and the pricing model are fine. We find the solution does not give us a lot of additional value."
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Comparison Review

it_user6663 - PeerSpot reviewer
May 25, 2013
SAP Business Objects vs. Microsoft BI
A quick look at the whole idea on another weblogs gives you a sense that all of them just talked about very brief things like report refresh feature in BO or cube feature in MS Analysis Service. I choose MS BI and I want to share my reasons and opinions on why I choose it and give you another quick…
 

Answers from the Community

Ariel Lindenfeld - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 25, 2014
Mar 25, 2014
I don't want to interfere in a community discussion, but I need to note that the information posted by Nurul Haszeli isn't good to work from. The Microstrategy brief is old and contains statements that were badly inaccurate even when it was created. The Summary of New Features document is for WebFOCUS 5.2, while the latest release is WebFOCUS 8. The technologyevaluation.com link is from 2000. W...
2 out of 6 answers
it_user6534 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 23, 2014
I could answer the Business Objects questions ... Webfocus is not my expertise.
it_user78798 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 23, 2014
I can provide some feedback on WebFOCUS, and have SOME experience in BO. What questions can I answer for you?
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Information Builders WebFOCUS?
I would rate the pricing a five out of ten, with ten being expensive.
What is your primary use case for Information Builders WebFOCUS?
I use it for supplying and developing business intelligence (BI) solutions, data management and reporting applications, and for the development of complete web-based applications. It's a versatile ...
Seeking lightweight open source BI software
There are many...It would rather depend what System BI architecture or Enterprise legacy you have at your end...I would recommend as follows: 1) If you have legacies of SAP, Oracle - look for SAP...
Tableau vs. Business Objects - Which is a better solution for visualization and analysis?
Both tools have their positives and negatives. First, I should mention that I am relatively new to Tableau. I have been working on and off Tableau for about a year, but getting to work on it consta...
What do you like most about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform?
What I like the most about SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform is that it has significantly improved our decision-making process.
 

Also Known As

WebFOCUS
SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform, SAP BusinessObjects, Business Objects
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ace Hardware, AutoZone, Fred Hutch, MasterCard, OFS Brands, PostFinance, Real D, Yellow Pages, ABC Financial, AcuSport, BBVA, Babcock
SRAM, Kennametal, Fairfax Water, British American Tobacco, Velux, and FedEx.
Find out what your peers are saying about SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform vs. ibi WebFOCUS and other solutions. Updated: January 2023.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.