Don’t You (Forget About Java)

Posted on by EV Technologies

Will you recognize me?
Call my name or walk on by?

When the Web Intelligence road map was last updated in May 2016, SAP announced its first actions toward retiring its Java-based Web Intelligence. When SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.2 Support Pack 3 was released it introduced several of the most widely used “Java” features to the HTML panel. The remaining gaps would be closed in subsequent support packs released in 2017.

The new edition of the Web Intelligence road map- previewed last week at SAP Insider’s BI 2017 conference- will be published soon with a subtle change to the previous road map. Instead of delivering feature parity to the existing HTML panel in 2017, SAP will instead release a new Fiori-based edition of Web Intelligence in 2018. Instead of more HTML functionality in the forthcoming BI 4.2 Support Pack 4, SAP will be delivering a Fiori-based Web Intelligence viewer, a significant teaser before we get a full-fledged Fiori-based product.

Customers who are already on SAP BI 4.2 SP3 or higher should give the HTML viewer a fresh look to see if they can live with its remaining feature gaps.

Updating Web Intelligence panel in BI Launch Pad

Java 9 is coming in July 2016, so it’s likely that BI 4.2 support packs delivered in the second half of 2017 will add compatibility. SAP hasn’t made specific promises, but I’ll guess that Java 9 compatibility will only be guaranteed with BI 4.2 as an additional incentive for BI 4.0 and BI 4.1 customers to patch up this year. I’ll also go out on a limb and predict that BI 4.3 will ship with just one version of Web Intelligence- all Fiori all the time. Customers that want to cling bitterly to their Java dependencies can continue to receive patches to BI 4.2.

Although the road map is changing, the road still leads to a bright, Java-free future for Web Intelligence.

 

 

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  1. Pingback: SAP BusinessObjects Support for Java 9 - EV Technologies, Inc.

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