Crystal Decisions, a leading global provider of business intelligence software and services, today announced a strategic alliance with BEA Systems (Nasdaq: BEAS). As part of this strategic alliance, Crystal Reports for BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1, an embedded version of Crystal Reports, is scheduled to ship as part of the default install with service pack two of BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1. As strategic partners, Crystal Decisions and BEA will develop a joint go-to-market strategy for business opportunities in the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and business intelligence markets.

Most organizations are aware of Crystal Reports, either from developers who have used the tool before or through the hundreds of original equipment manufacturer agreements Crystal Decisions has made to bundle its reporting technology with other applications. Although this exposure gives Crystal Reports the advantage of name recognition, it can also work against the product, as most people think of it as "just a report writer" or as a tool for developers.

Crystal Reports will be distributed with Borland® JBuilder® and Borland® C#Builder™ for the Microsoft® .NET™ Framework. Providing developers with a rapid development environment for building the presentation tier and reporting infrastructure for enterprise applications, Crystal Reports provides developers with the tools necessary to be more productive in building next generation applications.  Recognizing that developers are serving the needs of their organizations within heterogeneous environments - using the Java platform and the Microsoft® .NET™ Framework - the Crystal Decisions product suite provides access to and analysis of information, and shares it across the organization to thousands of users, using either development platform.

Crystal Decisions, a leading global provider of business intelligence software and services, today announced the availability of new Excel functionality for Crystal Enterprise. With Crystal Decisions' most recent Microsoft Office integration feature, business users can now customize, format and refresh live report data from within Excel, and the resulting spreadsheets can be securely shared over the Web using the delivery platform of Crystal Enterprise. IT users will also benefit from this feature as it enables them to create and deploy spreadsheet reports as an optional format for their users to access and analyze corporate information. This feature is available today as a download for all Crystal Enterprise Premium edition customers.

The authorized guide to the latest edition of the #1 business intelligence software product - Crystal Reports. More than 16 million licenses of Crystal Reports have been shipped to date.  This book is a reference designed to provide hands-on guidance for the latest release of the product suite. The latest version of Crystal Reports and the Business Objects enterprise reporting suite delivers vast product enhancements and a tighter integration that will drive upgrades from licensees. Brand new features (e.g. Dynamic and Cascading Parameter Generation) will also appeal to new audiences. Over 1 million new Business Intelligence licensees will be migrating to the Crystal Enterprise Reporting platform, as this is the first release of the software with the existing Business Objects (BO) products being integrated into the Crystal infrastructure. As Business Objects insiders, the authors bring unique and valuable real-world perspectives on implementations and uses of the Crystal Reports product. The book also includes content, tutorials and samples for reporting within the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET and J2EE development environments and also on top of the SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) and the Peoplesoft platform. Advanced content on report distribution and integration into the secured managed reporting solution known as Business Objects Enterprise XI, is also now included in this definitive user guide with coverage on the new Web Services SDK.