RE: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
> -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Tony Gravagno > Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 6:11 PM > To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org > Subject: RE: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools > > > Mark Ballinger mballinger-at-ballinger.cx |U2UG| wrote: > > On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 07:42:51AM -0700, Dave S wrote: > >> You can purchase it from this company : > >> > >> http://www.sandritech.com/ > > > > Yes, I know. I'm just wondering what it costs. > > The best way to find out what products cost is to contact the supplier. > Sandritech in particular has a good group of people and I'm sure you'll get > good info, product, and service with them. I'm not one to support > senseless cloaks of secrecy (I hate not seeing a price tag on items in a > store) but there are many reasons to not publish pricing info. Retail and software services are two totally different styles of markets. However, a lack of base pricing will more than often deter prospective customers from inquiring on products. People are lazy these days, especially with the reduction in staff that most businesses are running under. The easier you make it for the buyer to shop and compare, the more likely you will be to get a sale. Do the comparison legwork yourself and post a price comparison by feature. I'll bet you sell more product that way, even if you are more expensive. Make sure you keep it updated, though. There's nothing worse than pulling up a comparison table to see it's 4 years old and the features list is 3 versions old. > Pricing for some of these software products can vary widely > depending on the VAR, their value-add in terms of support, training, etc, > location, bundling, and many other factors. I might offer a well known > product at cost if we agree to short or long term services or a training > engagement. I might waive support fees for some period of time or offer an > add-on component for less than list cost, not to mention quantity > discounts. This is always an issue and everyone who is involved with buying software licenses and support understands that published pricing is only a top-level guide, not a real quote. However, published pricing is the only way to narrow down the huge list of software possibilities to those that fit in the general realm of a companies budget. I don't bother calling a small software firm for a price quote, if there is no published base pricing for their standard product. It could be a lot cheaper, but I don't have time to call 20 small software companies and get accurate price quotes to then narrow it down to 2 or 3 that fit our budget and feature requirements. > If we let 'list price' stand as any guide by which we judge > products then I dare say we'd consider a whole lot of products unworthy of > further investigation, and these negotiable would never even be put on the > table - I've seen it happen. If you sell any kind of product or service, you must have base pricing. Anyone who doesn't show it should either be the only one in their market or have an established name in the market. Selling cars with no window pricing is fine because you can touch what you are comparing and you can always pull out the Kelly Blue Book to see what the base prices are. You can't do that with software, unless you spend weeks getting quotes for features from every software vendor out there. No one in their right mind will do that, except maybe a consumer reporting group like CNET or a magazine. Typically, though, consumer reports are biased towards the advertisers that pay their salaries. Still, the deciding factor is going to be the overall feature/price point. Companies that know their market and know their price points can show base pricing without pushing away prospective buyers with high estimates or misleading weary shoppers with under-average pricing. > A price that's published today may change tomorrow. You don't want > to prospects to be discouraged by a price they see in a forum when the > price isn't what was posted anymore. > Also, sad but a fact of life, many companies use list price as one > of their key differentiators to raise or lower their own pricing to find a > competitive sweet spot. If someone publishes pricing in a public forum it > may mess up the vendor's competitive positioning, and even encourage other > vendors to just raise their own pricing - I've seen this happen too. That's because a lot of software vendors do not perform any kind of demographics to determine their price points. If you're going to sell a product in a market with a lot of competition, then you need to know what your min, max, and average pricing should be ba
RE: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
I don't know the list price for this product. Tony Gravagno <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Mark Ballinger mballinger-at-ballinger.cx |U2UG| wrote: > On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 07:42:51AM -0700, Dave S wrote: >> You can purchase it from this company : >> >> http://www.sandritech.com/ > > Yes, I know. I'm just wondering what it costs. The best way to find out what products cost is to contact the supplier. Sandritech in particular has a good group of people and I'm sure you'll get good info, product, and service with them. I'm not one to support senseless cloaks of secrecy (I hate not seeing a price tag on items in a store) but there are many reasons to not publish pricing info. Pricing for some of these software products can vary widely depending on the VAR, their value-add in terms of support, training, etc, location, bundling, and many other factors. I might offer a well known product at cost if we agree to short or long term services or a training engagement. I might waive support fees for some period of time or offer an add-on component for less than list cost, not to mention quantity discounts. If we let 'list price' stand as any guide by which we judge products then I dare say we'd consider a whole lot of products unworthy of further investigation, and these negotiables would never even be put on the table - I've seen it happen. A price that's published today may change tomorrow. You don't want to prospects to be discouraged by a price they see in a forum when the price isn't what was posted anymore. Also, sad but a fact of life, many companies use list price as one of their key differentiators to raise or lower their own pricing to find a competitive sweet spot. If someone publishes pricing in a public forum it may mess up the vendor's competitive positioning, and even encourage other vendors to just raise their own pricing - I've seen this happen too. Finally, pricing for some products is just too complex and confusing to put into a public forum. There are often server vs client costs or concurrency factors, and some products are priced differently depending on the platform they're hosted on. Any list price posted will probably be wrong from the get-go. A vendor doesn't want to start a public debate about "I don't understand that" or "why does the price break occur there?". These are discussions to be had one-on-one. Tony Gravagno Nebula Research and Development TG@ removethisNebula-RnD .com --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ - Discover Yahoo! Have fun online with music videos, cool games, IM & more. Check it out! --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
Mark Ballinger mballinger-at-ballinger.cx |U2UG| wrote: > On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 07:42:51AM -0700, Dave S wrote: >> You can purchase it from this company : >> >> http://www.sandritech.com/ > > Yes, I know. I'm just wondering what it costs. The best way to find out what products cost is to contact the supplier. Sandritech in particular has a good group of people and I'm sure you'll get good info, product, and service with them. I'm not one to support senseless cloaks of secrecy (I hate not seeing a price tag on items in a store) but there are many reasons to not publish pricing info. Pricing for some of these software products can vary widely depending on the VAR, their value-add in terms of support, training, etc, location, bundling, and many other factors. I might offer a well known product at cost if we agree to short or long term services or a training engagement. I might waive support fees for some period of time or offer an add-on component for less than list cost, not to mention quantity discounts. If we let 'list price' stand as any guide by which we judge products then I dare say we'd consider a whole lot of products unworthy of further investigation, and these negotiables would never even be put on the table - I've seen it happen. A price that's published today may change tomorrow. You don't want to prospects to be discouraged by a price they see in a forum when the price isn't what was posted anymore. Also, sad but a fact of life, many companies use list price as one of their key differentiators to raise or lower their own pricing to find a competitive sweet spot. If someone publishes pricing in a public forum it may mess up the vendor's competitive positioning, and even encourage other vendors to just raise their own pricing - I've seen this happen too. Finally, pricing for some products is just too complex and confusing to put into a public forum. There are often server vs client costs or concurrency factors, and some products are priced differently depending on the platform they're hosted on. Any list price posted will probably be wrong from the get-go. A vendor doesn't want to start a public debate about "I don't understand that" or "why does the price break occur there?". These are discussions to be had one-on-one. Tony Gravagno Nebula Research and Development TG@ removethisNebula-RnD .com --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 07:42:51AM -0700, Dave S wrote: > You can purchase it from this company : > > http://www.sandritech.com/ Yes, I know. I'm just wondering what it costs. --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
You can purchase it from this company : http://www.sandritech.com/ Sandri Technologies, Inc. Mark Ballinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 09:28:16AM -0400, Dianne Ackerman wrote: > We love mvQuery and so do our clients. > -Dianne How much does it sell for? Their website doesn't seem to say. --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 09:28:16AM -0400, Dianne Ackerman wrote: > We love mvQuery and so do our clients. > -Dianne How much does it sell for? Their website doesn't seem to say. --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
We love mvQuery and so do our clients. -Dianne Clifton Oliver wrote: One of my clients has asked me what reporting tools, other than Crystal Reports other U2 shops favor. Any recommendations of what they might want to evaluate? Thanks in Advance. --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
We use Microgen MVQuery for extracting from the U2 database into Excel/Access/SQL. It works and its reasonably priced Bob -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Manu Fernandes Sent: 07 June 2005 08:13 To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: Re: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools We use Hummingbird/BI Suite. http://www.hummingbird.com > BI Manu Fernandes Infodata S.`r.l. Tel : (352) 33 16 48 Fax : (.352) 33 75 55 - Original Message - From: "Clifton Oliver" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 11:04 PM Subject: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools > One of my clients has asked me what reporting tools, other than Crystal > Reports other U2 shops favor. > > Any recommendations of what they might want to evaluate? > > Thanks in Advance. > > > -- > > Regards, > > Clif > > ~~~ > W. Clifton Oliver, CCP > CLIFTON OLIVER & ASSOCIATES > Tel: +1 619 460 5678Web: www.oliver.com > ~~~ > --- > u2-users mailing list > u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org > To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ __ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email __ __ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email __ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
We use Hummingbird/BI Suite. http://www.hummingbird.com > BI Manu Fernandes Infodata S.`r.l. Tel : (352) 33 16 48 Fax : (.352) 33 75 55 - Original Message - From: "Clifton Oliver" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 11:04 PM Subject: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools One of my clients has asked me what reporting tools, other than Crystal Reports other U2 shops favor. Any recommendations of what they might want to evaluate? Thanks in Advance. -- Regards, Clif ~~~ W. Clifton Oliver, CCP CLIFTON OLIVER & ASSOCIATES Tel: +1 619 460 5678Web: www.oliver.com ~~~ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
Clif and David: Don't let the Raining Data price fool you. Mv.NET will offer the same thing for a ___LOT___ less! I'm testing out SQL Reporting services using ODBC and it works nicely. At this point it's free. I'm going to be testing it with OleDB shortly. Still, at this point it's free or, as Microsoft says, at no additional charge. :-) Mv.NET will be a lot cheaper than PDP.NET Reporting services but I can't say for sure until I start using it. Anyway, with what I've been testing, SQL Reporting Services is so good I can't imagine why anyone would develop with anything else. Tomorrow may change though. :-) Bill -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Jordan Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 2:23 PM To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: RE: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools Microsoft SQL Reporting Services is a good product and I think it is Rainingdata that is providing an interface between MV and SQL Reporting Services. Regards David Jordan -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Clifton Oliver Sent: Tuesday, 7 June 2005 7:04 AM To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools One of my clients has asked me what reporting tools, other than Crystal Reports other U2 shops favor. Any recommendations of what they might want to evaluate? Thanks in Advance. -- Regards, Clif ~~~ W. Clifton Oliver, CCP CLIFTON OLIVER & ASSOCIATES Tel: +1 619 460 5678Web: www.oliver.com ~~~ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
I'm obviously biased, but they could do worse than look at our Visage.Reporter product. Comes in 2 varieties for report production - 'free' production with Visage [web] clients, client preview etc, or server based version for direct output to any server accessible printer, options for fax, email etc Report Designer is WYSIYG, with drag & drop dictionary integration, multi-level grouping & totalling, you can drag in graphics (constant, or variable path from database) etc etc. Just combine a report definition with a query (in code, or using our graphical query builder) and a destination printer & you are away Ross Ferris Stamina Software Visage - an Evolution in Software Development >-Original Message- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:owner-u2- >[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Clifton Oliver >Sent: Tuesday, 7 June 2005 7:04 AM >To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org >Subject: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools > >One of my clients has asked me what reporting tools, other than Crystal >Reports other U2 shops favor. > >Any recommendations of what they might want to evaluate? > >Thanks in Advance. > > >-- > >Regards, > >Clif > >~~~ >W. Clifton Oliver, CCP >CLIFTON OLIVER & ASSOCIATES >Tel: +1 619 460 5678Web: www.oliver.com >~~~ >--- >u2-users mailing list >u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org >To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
Clifton Oliver wco-at-oliver.com |U2UG| wrote: > One of my clients has asked me what reporting tools, > other than Crystal Reports other U2 shops favor. > Any recommendations of what they might want to evaluate? The answer sort of depends on how much of a canned solution they want vs how OK they are with building their own. For a stock U2 solution, I was impressed with Informer from Entrinsik, which is recommended by Dawn Wolthuis. It's browser-based and good as a plug-n-play solution for ad hoc reporting. I'm inclined these days to think of UI's and reports as completely unrelated to MV (separation of UI from communications and rules, etc). With tools like mv.NET or PDP.NET to make the connection to the back-end, all you need to add is data. I'd include UO.NET in there too but that's not a real .NET Data Provider, which is really helpful if you want to focus on the UI and not the mechanics of data manipulation. There are some great components available if the client is OK with custom development, .NET, Java, etc. Some tools are more components than WYSIWYG IDE's. A quick look at an MSDN magazine yields these sites: www.datadynamics.com (nice looking UI for development) www.componentone.com (see the Reporting tools and Studio, nice UI) I'd welcome a chance to work with either of those and they're probably the closest answers to Clif's inquiry. www.dundas.com www.nevron.com www.syncfusion.com www.chartfx.com www.fpoint.com www.infragistics.com And of course there's Microsoft's SQL Reporting Services which is a lot more than just a report development tool (don't let the SQL part throw you off): http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/productinfo/overview.asp Yes, RD has an interface for this but before spending the money they're asking for, be sure you understand their value-add and then decide what tools you want, where you want to buy them, and how much you want to pay for them. If you google for \ "asp.net" reporting \ you'll see a lot of other tools for generating reports for browsers and devices. That's just a start... HTH Tony Gravagno Nebula Research and Development TG@ removethisNebula-RnD .com --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
Microsoft SQL Reporting Services is a good product and I think it is Rainingdata that is providing an interface between MV and SQL Reporting Services. Regards David Jordan -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Clifton Oliver Sent: Tuesday, 7 June 2005 7:04 AM To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools One of my clients has asked me what reporting tools, other than Crystal Reports other U2 shops favor. Any recommendations of what they might want to evaluate? Thanks in Advance. -- Regards, Clif ~~~ W. Clifton Oliver, CCP CLIFTON OLIVER & ASSOCIATES Tel: +1 619 460 5678Web: www.oliver.com ~~~ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
We use Mvquery. Mvquery does a nice job with ad-hoc reports. It does have it's limitations. Clifton Oliver <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: One of my clients has asked me what reporting tools, other than Crystal Reports other U2 shops favor. Any recommendations of what they might want to evaluate? Thanks in Advance. -- Regards, Clif ~~~ W. Clifton Oliver, CCP CLIFTON OLIVER & ASSOCIATES Tel: +1 619 460 5678 Web: www.oliver.com ~~~ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ - Discover Yahoo! Get on-the-go sports scores, stock quotes, news & more. Check it out! --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
[U2] Recommendations for reporting tools
One of my clients has asked me what reporting tools, other than Crystal Reports other U2 shops favor. Any recommendations of what they might want to evaluate? Thanks in Advance. -- Regards, Clif ~~~ W. Clifton Oliver, CCP CLIFTON OLIVER & ASSOCIATES Tel: +1 619 460 5678Web: www.oliver.com ~~~ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
