Last wek I had my empoloyees at Comerit Labs test BI 4.0 and BOBJ tools on two mobile devices (Toshiba Thrive 10.1 on Android and the Apple Ipad2). The main purpose was to achieve an end-user perspective of BI 4.0 through the BI Launch Pad and the web.
(Apple's iPad2 and Toshiba's Android device)
Limitations
There are some limitations that can affect the comparison of the two tablets since both operating system vendors offer different functionality. For example, flash is not supported on the Ipad2 but it is on the Android based Toshiba Thrive. The work around are 3rd party apps that you can purchase from the app store for the Apple products. Another limitation is that SAP has not created an Android based mobile application in the market, so there can be no direct comparison between the two O/S vendors for mobile apps. However let us take a look at what we tried and tested.
Tools that were tried by our mobile devices:
-BI Launch Pad
-Web Intelligence
- Mobile (‘MobI”)
-Dashboard Designer (Xcelsius)
-Crystal Reports
-Analysis for OLAP
-BI Workspace
-SAP BusinessObjects Mobile app for the Ipad2
Based on multiple user experience, this is how my developers rated the user experience on average going through the BI Launch Pad and a mobile web client. By nature this is a subjetive rating and some of the option shold probably not be attempted in ‘real life’.
Apple Ipad2
Toshiba Thrive (Android)
Legend
Display:
-Green faces are where the testers feelt that the mobile display would satisfy a user
-Yellow faces are where the testers feelt that the mobile display are not very usable
-Red faces means that the product does not execute well at all
Usability
-Green faces are where the testers could navigate and use the product
-Yellow faces are where the testers could see the display and only navigate on a static display
-Red faces are where the testers could not use the product on the screen or it did not execute
Functionality
-Green faces mean that majority of functionality worked in the test
-Yellow faces mean that very little functionality worked in the test
-Red faces mean that the functionality did not work in the test (or could not work due to lack of client software)
Just some feedback from developers working on these products every day...
Dr. Berg