Reed: Sounds fun. One of the newest areas in the SCN Community is the EcoHub. Can you tell us about the connections between the EcoHub and the BusinessObjects Community?

Milroy: The EcoHub is new, and we've just started looking at how we can integrate it into the community. The big thing with EcoHub is that it's like an online marketplace. One product we have is Xcelsius, for writing plug-ins. The idea is that a developer can write a plug-in and then hook it in. So if you want to have, say, a Google map or anything like that inside the Xcelsius product, and Xcelsius doesn't provide it, you could download a partner solution. EcoHub allows partners to post their solutions for customers to browse. So say you're looking for a Google map solution to integrate with your Xcelsius document - you'd be able to browse them right there.

That's been a really big one for us because not only is it for developers to be able to see where they post solutions, but it's also for customers to see how to do additional things with their Xcelsius product. We already have the Google maps there, I think it's by Centigon Solutions, and we have this 3-D globe plug-in, all this really cool stuff that expands the product beyond what it was built for.

Reed: That sounds like something you really have to get on the site to get a feel for, but I think the visualization of information is a really important trend, so hopefully folks will check that out.

I wanted to ask you something that ties into that in terms of accessibility of information across the Enterprise, because sometimes we hear that BusinessObjects, and SAP BW itself for that matter, is largely a technical concern. What can someone from the functional and business analyst side of SAP get out of their involvement in the BusinessObjects Community?

Milroy: That's a really well-timed question because we've been talking to Gartner, and they're saying that 40% of BI spending is going to shift from the IT area in companies to the business area. Business users are going to be having a lot more responsibility on where business spending goes. You kind of want to get in there and see what the products are and where you want to invest that. And you can do that on BusinessObjects. I think that's the beauty of the Business Intelligence tools: a developer can use them, but Xcelsius works on Excel. If you are able to use Excel, you can pick up Xcelsius and start using it.

At TechEd, we had over 700 people build dashboards off data and display them within 20 to 30 minutes, and they had never seen the products before. We've got the Crystal Reports, we've got the Web Intelligence ad hoc tools. The information is there, there's the webinar; there are code and dashboard samples you can look at, a lot of things you can just get a glimpse at so you get the touch and feel and the general idea of what the products can do for you without having to get into the gory details of coding or those sorts of things.

Reed: I think it's going to be a big year for BI, and it will be interesting to see if business users can take advantage of some of these new tools. There's a lot of flexibility that folks don't realize they now have in being able to build very specific reports that are not tied into a specific kind of financial reporting or needing to go to your IT department to get a certain kind of report, so those kinds of conversations will thrive on the BusinessObjects Community.

Milroy: That's a really good point. That's kind of where the bottleneck is: asking your BI guy or your IT guy to print you another report. If you have the right tool, you can just drag and drop in a field to add another column to your solution. Our tools are designed to make that easy.

Reed: Is there anything else you want to add about the community that we didn't get a chance to touch on?

Milroy: The only thing I'd throw in there is the Innovation Labs, coming this week or next. This is almost pre-alpha stuff, stuff we're experimenting with. People who are on the leading edge and want to check out where BI is going can open up that Innovation Labs area. I think that's going to be new and interesting for a lot of people. Other than that, I would definitely encourage people to check out the site, see what's going on. There's so much information there now to get started and get an understanding of what's going on for SAP people and for BusinessObjects people. Once you get started, there's a whole forums area to ask questions and get answers and collaborate with other people in the community who are going through the same challenges that you are, so I definitely encourage people to visit the site.

Reed: Kuhan, thanks for taking the time to give us this inside view of the BusinessObjects Community and some of the latest developments.

Before we sign off, I do want to make sure our listeners know how to access the BusinessObjects Community. The direct URL is boc.sap.com. If you've not yet registered with SAP's online communities, you can register for the BusinessObjects Community and the Developer Network and the BPX Community at the same time. If you're already signed up for one of the communities but not signed up for SAP BOC yet, you can simply update your profile and check off the BOC on your member information.

The BusinessObjects Community can be found anywhere on the SAP Community Network site by clicking on the BusinessObjects tab on the main horizontal menu bar. You can find EcoHub which we were talking about on the same bar. The direct URL for EcoHub is ecohub.sap.com. On that note, I'd like to thank our listeners for joining us today for this BusinessObjects Community podcast. With that, this is Jon Reed of JonERP.com signing off. We'll see you online soon at boc.sap.com.