SAP Business Objects Explorer: BI Search Meets ERP, But Will It Accelerate Adoption of BI Search?

by Curt Hall

SAP/Business Objects' representatives bill its new BI search tool as a way for companies to disseminate BI functionality throughout their organizations to business users -- a sort of "self-service" BI tool for nontechies that makes finding and analyzing information as easy as using Google or Yahoo! search. Business Objects Explorer is an impressive tool. But to date, use of BI search by end-user organizations has been limited. So will SAP throwing its weight behind Explorer lead to increased acceptance of BI search? Before attempting to answer this question, I first need to explain Explorer in more detail.