Earlier this week at SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando, we announced the roadmap to converge SAP BusinessObjects Lumira and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio into one product.

This FAQ should address the most common questions regarding this transition.

What are we announcing during SAPPHIRE NOW?

We’re announcing a roadmap to combine the agility of SAP BusinessObjects Lumira with the dashboard and application capability of SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio for creating BI content into one product.

What is the product strategy behind this convergence?

We want to empower business users with agile tools that can access both trusted and departmental data while allowing them to upscale their visualizations to enterprise-level analytic applications when needed.

In addition, we are continuing to simplify the BI portfolio. An outcome of this convergence is we will have 4 primary BI tools going forward:

• SAP BusinessObjects Lumira (including Design Studio capability) for both trusted data discovery and analytic applications.
• SAP BusinessObjects Analysis for Office for Excel based analytics
• SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence for self-service reporting
• SAP Crystal Reports for highly formatted reporting

In addition, SAP BusinessObjects Mobile BI is the single mobile application to consume this content.

What is SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 2.0?

This product is the next major version of both SAP Lumira 1.x and SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.x.

There will be continue to be two desktop clients as they exist today, but a single server side addon.

We are retaining two desktop clients as they target distinct user personas:

• Lumira desktop will continue to focus on agility for the business user.
• Lumira studio will enable the creation of powerful analytic applications and enterprise dashboards.

With the 2.0 release, the files created in these clients can be opened in the other because the two clients but part of a single product.

Why is SAP calling it one product if there are still two clients?

It is not unusual for one product to offer different ways of working with it.  As an example, Web Intelligence has a DHTML client, Java applet client, and a desktop thick client but it is clearly one product.

What are the expected benefits for current SAP BusinessObjects Lumira users?

• Seamless promotion of stories created by business users into professionally authored enterprise dashboards and analytic applications.

• Full support for all SAP BW metadata and hierarchies with a new BW online data connection.

What are the expected benefits for current SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio users?

• Enable IT professionals and power users to rapidly develop, refine, and promote BI content that was prototyped by line of business users
• Access to offline data, accelerated by the Velocity in-memory engine.
• Ability to personalize existing enterprise dashboards.
• Improved Universe connectivity.

Why is this a big deal?

Business users and IT have different priorities. Business users are all about agility and speed. IT is mostly focused on governance, security, and scalability. Both needs are important. By converging onto a single product we can meet both sets of needs at the same time.

Will there be functional parity between Lumira 2.0 and the existing products?

For existing SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio customers, we expect there to be 100% functional parity with SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 2.0.

We do plan some platform support changes in SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 2.0:

• It will be a 64-bit client only (similar to SAP BusinessObjects Lumira Desktop 1.x)
• We will only offer a server add-on to the BI Platform. Server add-ons to the NetWeaver and HANA platforms will not be supported. Data access to NetWeaver and HANA data will continue to be supported as they are today.
• Connectivity to HANA will only be supported through the HTTP-based INA connector, not a SQL/JDBC connector.

For existing SAP Lumira customers, the only capability that we are aware of that will be missing in SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 2.0 compared to Lumira 1.x is the faceted Explorer-like view in the Visualize room. We will continue to have the faceted navigation view in the data preparation view of Lumira 2.0, but that won’t be available in the equivalent of the Visualize room until a later release.

We know that the faceted navigation view with visualizations is important, especially for current Explorer customers and will add that in as soon as possible after the release of SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 2.0.

Design Studio 1.x files can be opened by SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 2.0.

Lumira 1.x files can be opened by SAP BusinessObjects Lumira Desktop 2.0.

All existing 1.X SDK extensions for both Lumira 1.x and Design Studio 1.x will continue to work.

Should customers continue to deploy SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 1.x?

Absolutely. Given the planned high level of parity between Lumira 1.x and 2.0, there is no reason not to deploy now with confidence.

Should customers continue to deploy SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.x?

Absolutely. Given the planned high level of parity between Design Studio 1.x and Lumira 2.0, there is no reason not to deploy now with confidence.

Are we expecting a migration for existing content built using SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 1.x or SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio 1.x?

There will be no migration steps or content rewrites to move to SAP BusinessObjects Lumira 2.0 from either preceding product.

What are the licensing implications of the technical convergence?

There will be no changes to license entitlements.

• Licensees of Lumira Server for BI Platform today will have access to equivalent functionality.
• Licensees of Lumira Desktop today will have access to equivalent functionality.
• Licensees Design Studio today will be entitled to equivalent functionality as well.
• Licensees Design Studio that are not entitled to Lumira Server functionality will not receive that functionality with the 2.0 plan.

Will there be any name changes?

We are likely to change the name of the Design Studio client to align with the SAP BusinessObjects Lumira brand. It is shown as SAP BusinessObjects Lumira, studio edition in this FAQ.

What else is happening with Lumira 2.0?

In addition to the convergence with Design Studio, we are planning to deliver a major upgrade to the user experience in SAP BusinessObjects Lumira, collapsing the current Compose and Visualize rooms into a single canvas.

Where can I find the latest product road maps?

This link shows the SAP Lumira roadmap on SAP Service Marketplace (login required).