It has been more than 1.5 years since SAP acquired BO. Right from the acquisition there have been confusions galore for a SAP BI Consultant:
What are the new skills he would have to acquire to stay competitive?
What would be the final product map for SAP BI?
What would happen to his project if they move towards BO reporting?
What would be their career path?
And so on.....
Thankfully SDN and the expert loggers have been of great help in answering some of those questions and also allaying some of the fears.
Most of the SAP BI consultants now have a greater visibility on the product roadmap. In short, the backend part of SAP BI would remain almost untouched post the acquisition but the front-end would undergo major changes which is all for good!
If you have not seen the product roadmap check this link:
http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/b050d131-7ebc-2a10-57a3-99f755495...
The above link also shows which products would be phased out and when.
SDN also rolled out some of the BO frontend applications on a trial basis. This was very helpful for the consultants and also for the customers. The consultants could use these trial versions to learn some of these easy to use tools and get a “feel” of the reports and the tools’ capabilities. For the customers it provided an opportunity to develop some proof of concepts/prototypes and check out if the product meets their business requirements.
For the free trials check here: http://www.sap.com/solutions/sapbusinessobjects/sme/freetrials/index.epx
There have been many e-learning courses on Business objects in the Business Intelligence area in SDN: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/bi-elearning
An exclusive section on SDN is the Business Objects for SAP where articles on integration between BO and SAP can be found - http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/business-objects-for-sap
There have been many blogs on how to use these tools by our expert bloggers. Some of them:
Blogs by Ingo Hilgefort: ingo.hilgefort/blog
Blogs by Thierry Audas: thierry.audas/blog
Blogs by Miguel Figueiredo: miguel.figueiredo/blog
Blogs by Arvind: arvind.bhaskar/blog
Right now there are still many changes happening in the SAP BI space and it would take time before the final picture emerges. But thankfully SDN and its expert bloggers is keeping us abreast of the changes and it is up to us to use them judiciously.
