I know little about Crystal Reports so I can post the main features of CR if anybody have some knowledge about other reporting tools he can post the features of that reporting tool in this way we can have a goog comparison data.
The Comparison features features can include
1. Security
2.Development Environment
3.Application Integration and Deployement
4.Rendering
5.User Defined Reports
6. Scheduling -Security Crystal Reports itself doesn't address security. You can buy Crystal Enterprise or use Crystal RAS to help with security but a front-end application should be able to handle all your security needs.
-Development environment Crystal has its own integrated development environment. Various features that Crystal report have under the development environment can be used as a comparison parameters.
Report designer. Drag-and-drop interface and object-oriented explorers.
Experts and wizards. Optional experts and wizards to simplify common reporting tasks such as connecting to a data source, selecting, grouping, sorting, and summarizing data.
Types of Reports. cross-tab, conditional, top N/bottom N, summary/drill-down, form, mailing label, OLAP, and subreport.
Charting and mapping. map and chart types including bar/3D bar, pie/doughnut, line, gantt, gauge, funnel, XY scatter, ranged map, dot density map, and more.
Reusable report objects. text objects, SQL commands, bitmaps, and custom functions (formulas) -- in a central managed library (provided in Crystal Enterprise) for sharing, reuse, and single-point updating across multiple reports.
Customizable templates. Design and apply customized templates that specify standards in formatting and logic -- including data access operations -- to ensure design consistency across reports.
Formula language. Formula language in Crystal Reports contain over 160 built-in and user-defined functions and operators to tightly control report formatting, complex logic, and data selection. A call-stack makes debugging data-level errors easy. A formula extractor and formula workshop are also included.
Custom functions. Eliminate redundant formula creation. Extract business logic from formulas to create custom functions so you can use them across multiple reports.
Asymmetric reporting. Provide a customized view of OLAP grids. With asymmetric reporting, you can hide specific dimensions of data so that end users only see relevant and valuable data.
Application Integration and Deployment Crystal Reports 10 introduces a 100% Java version of the powerful Crystal Reports reporting engine. This new reporting component helps you take full advantage of Java, including portability across operating systems and hardware platforms. It delivers a fast, codeless way for developers to connect to data and to design dynamic reports for easy integration into Java Server Pages. The Java Reporting Component is also integrated with popular Integrated Development Environments including Borland JBuilder X and BEA WebLogic Workshop.
User Defined reports Crystal really doesn't lend itself to users building their own reports mainly because each user would require his/her own license. Also users would need knowledge of the database and the relationships which generally they don't have.
-Rendering; Crystal can export to numerous formats including HTML, Excel,
Word (
RTF), PDF,text and several others.
Scheduling; Scheduling is done either through Crystal enterpirse or through front end applications. Crystal Reports doesn't include any method of scheduling.
[ November 15, 2005: Message edited by: Sameer Jamal ]