Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Top 7 Reasons for a FREE version of BI Publisher a.k.a Uncage Oracle XML Publisher

I'd like to see a "free" (as in beer) version of BI Publisher (XML Publisher) added to the list of "free" Oracle products. Here are my reasons:

1. BI Publisher for everyone.

BI Publisher is fundamentally such a fantastic product that every organization and developer should benefit from it.

2. Remove the quirks.

The accelerated uptake from the "free" version would (hopefully) translate to the quirks of the product being identified and fixed in fraction of the time it would take for a paid expensive product.

3. Ease the expense.

BI Publisher bundled up in a package costing large $$$? I have trouble driving Oracle's online store at the best of times, and I can't find "BI Publisher Standalone" on its own - only bundled with other stuff I don't need or want, yet ;-) Try searching on "Publisher". Now making a free version would solve this problem - no license to find and buy!

4. It needs other technology to lean on.

In a similar nature to a plugin, BI Publisher doesn't stand on its own feet. Like APEX (needing the Oracle RDBMS) and JDeveloper (an IDE) it needs either someone to feed it or something else to connect to. If there is a free version its more likely that the other thing will be Oracle. Update: This point has been updated from the original post to clarify my use of "plugin".

5. It's a killer combo with APEX and XE.

The other "free" products - APEX and XE are natural integration partners with BI Publisher and the resulting combination is a awesome one. I see a number of people wanting this integration - but without the cost.

6. Raise visibility.

Although its been around for a number of years in various forms, the product on its own doesn't seem to be highly visible. Or is that just because of the quirks?! Making it free would bring visibility to new levels.

7. Beat the competition

Various other competitors exist, both in free and paid form. Making at least an entry level version of BI Publisher free would make it a viable competitor, and ensure Oracle customers lock into Oracle products taking out the chance of a competitors plugin being used.

8. Create Leads for Oracle

Oracle would benefit by having a greater stream of leads and support revenue.

Oops, that's 8, oh well, luckier than 7 for some ;-)

Post your support here!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

>> 4. It's a plugin technology.

That was enough for me, you got my vote.

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http://www.CompShack.com

Dimitri Gielis said...

Hello

> I can't find BI Publisher on its own
I believe that's not correct. You can buy BI Publisher as a stand-alone product

Dimitir

Tim Dexter said...

Plugin?? Yes, its embedded in multiple products but there is a complete standalone version, thats what APEX integrates with.
Free ... I dont think that will happen, more palatable pricing - thats a more achievable goal.
Tim

Gareth said...

Hi Dimitri,

I know BI Publisher comes standalone, just couldn't find "BI Publisher Standalone" on the Oracle Store - I'll reword the post - maybe I'm missing something in the Oracle Store or perhaps I should be just reverting to dealing with humans ;-)

Gareth

Gareth said...

Hi Tim,

Agreed my wording on the plugin front wasn't good - I'll reword it - my point being that BIP needs to be feed or integrated with something - at least XML data - and that has to come from something more substantial - which Oracle would like to be Oracle of course!

Gareth

L809RD said...

I have converted our Oracle EBS 11i Selected Invoice RAXINV.rdf to XML and created a template for XML Bursting. I'm bursting fine at the:
/ZRAXINV/LIST_G_ORDER_BY/G_ORDER_BY/LIST_G_CF_NO/G_CF_NO. My question is since I'm writing out my pdf output invoices to the filesystem on Sharepoint; I also need to archive the XML part of each invoice broken down by the same group as .//LIST_G_CF_NO/G_CF_NO. When I convert the rdf to XML it produces one XML file from which I created the templates.

My requirement is to archive both the individual invoices from the templates and the corresponding XML pieces on Sharepoint so that we will be able to search and link the xml to the pdf written out to the filesystem on Sharepoint.

Any idea how should go about this requirement will be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Leo

L809RD said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gareth said...

Hi L809RD,

You can write a java concurrent program that calls BI Publisher APIs to achieve your requirements. Bursting was originally done in this way.

Regards,
Gareth