[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Xcelsius: How to Ruin a Great Application here

[lordebon]

Can't say that I'm surprised. I've used SAP's namesake software, and it amazes me in its lack of user-friendliness. SAP (the company) seems to be all about features and getting them in rather than making them useful and easy-to-use.

[shanedr]

I bet they laid off the Xcelsius software designers when the new owners took over. How some people think they can quickly learn what took others years to develop is beyond my understanding.

[unknownsoundman1]

That is the way of the corporate world.
As in restaurants, and software, Buy a great product, and then change it to make it so bad that it fails. It must be an accountants idea of a good tax write-off. I have countless software whos owning co. sells to a mega corp., just to have them change it, remove the creative functionality, and add a bunch of untested bloatware (features), thereby making it an unstable, dirge of a piece of crapware.
They basicaly bought it, to ruin it, and get it off the market, 'cause it may be competing with their anchor of a sad example of a product. I've spent hundreds on Turtle Beach soundcards, just for them to sell the rights to Sony, who updated the software into non-functionality.
Now that I'm on Sonys mailing list they send me avalanches of propaganda, stating how wonderful their software (& Rootkit) is, at twice the price, with half the functionality, and expect me to buy their crap. Typical Corporate behavior.

[oregonnerd]

VCOM: System Suite. Same problem. Sigh. In the mid-90s their registry defragmentation was the best on the market I knew of. Now, it's a no-buy.

--Glenn

[YukonCornelius]

Wait until Symantec, who bought PC Tools, gets their buggy, bloatware, awful support hands on PC Tools apps. They will no doubt ruin them. You can say good bye to a once great set of apps.

[Plutov]

Does anyone know of a potential competitive product ? Xcelsius will probably show attention if there is a competition. I do not see anyone close presently in terms of functionality and price. I hope their lack of attention and a large number of frustrated customer will help someone jump in the field. Where are the original developers of xcelsius?

[HiranDeSilva]

I wish this article was written before I bought Xcelsius Engage 2008 about 2 weeks ago. Now I have an interesting case where the SAP salesman says I should contact their support people and pay (an additional) £130 to report/troubleshoot a bug! That is £130 for each When I try to return the product to the online store I'm told that the Sale of Goods Act does not apply to software purchases (I got the boxed product). Meanwhile I have an important client presentation and frantically looking for an alternative way forward technologically. Any help and ideas from anyone gratefully received.


You can follow the thread here.
[https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/forum?forumID=302]


Hiran de Silva





Edited by MPHEnterprises - Please do not post your personal information within the forums for your own security and privacy. That includes phone your email address(es), your address, your phone number, the serial number to your computer, or any product keys related to software or the Operating System.

[Michael01]

Tableau Software could be an alternative for you.

[jujuraf]

I agree 1000%. I too have been using it since the days of the original company Infommersion and it has gotten worse with every update. I paid $600+ for Engage 2008 and can't even use it. Thank goodness I kept 4.5 installed and I know its bugs and workarounds. he support at SAP is so infuriating - just the act of registering requires saint-line patience. Thank goodness it was my company's money and not mine but I need to pass this work off on someone else since there's no way I can keep making these models and still remain somewhat sane.

[jujuraf]

To Michael01 - I did check out Tableau, very cool product but it seems to only be a super pivot table application. I never have a need for pivot tables but need to build a web GUI for my Excel financial models. So far Xcelsius is the only thing out there. I may have to become a Flex developer whiz to roll my own given the tons of problems with the new version (not that the previous versions were bug free either but at least I know those bugs and can work around them).

[webhype]

Just take a look at the suXess Business Intelligence. It has a Java backbone, BI Server and all GUI runs on Flash. It has 7D Charts, 7D Pie Chart, Pivot Table a most realistic Performance Gauge, News Ticker, Google Gadgets etc. It is easy to use, has lot's of documentation and videos on how to's. It works everywhere in your mails, powerpoint, excel, web site, mobile. It is on Beta1, but it works just fine. Its developers are very friendly and open to new ideas. If you encounter a problem they fix it in a matter of hours.

[webhype]

Just take a look at the suXess Business Intelligence. It has a Java backbone, BI Server and all GUI runs on Flash. It has 7D Charts, 7D Pie Chart, Pivot Table a most realistic Performance Gauge, News Ticker, Google Gadgets etc. It is easy to use, has lot's of documentation and videos on how to's. It works everywhere in your mails, powerpoint, excel, web site, mobile. It is on Beta1, but it works just fine. Its developers are very friendly and open to new ideas. If you encounter a problem they fix it in a matter of hours. You can downlad it with installation and quick start videos from http://www.worldbi.biz

[SuperMario]

We installed Xcelsius Engage 2008 three weeks ago and we're very pleased. Of course it was hard to make it work because it was our first experience with a Xcelsius application (we've been using Crystal Reports since 2004-2005). After searching in forums, improving and testing we could connect a Visual Basic.NET WebService to Xcelsius, now we're very exited! We didn't apply the SP1 patch because I've read that you can't add more than one Web Service Connector. Feel free to contact me if you need help.

[omgwtfabug]

I've been using Xcelsius 2008 since half a year and since we only started using it, there is no option to go to any previous versions.

What irritates the most is the endless amounts of bugs and instability. Any tool has bugs, but this is just beyond anything I've ever seen (working with all relevant reporting tools for 12 years).
Xcelsius 2008 just isn't ready. It looks like it just has not been tested, and we, the developer community, have the dubious task of doing that for SAP AG.
The concept of a full SAP BI/BO integration is great, but it's an insult to sell this it in the stage it is now.