The recent acquisition of ActiveViews could help Microsoft provide self-service reporting in SQL Server Reporting Services, a free add-on for SQL Server 2000 that helps developers create and publish or distribute human-readable reports. Although ActiveViews has never shipped a product, it has been working on technology that allows end users to construct detailed personal or ad hoc reports from SQL Server databases without requiring them to possess SQL Server programming skills or understand SQL Server concepts and data structures.

Complements SQL Server Reporting Services

The ActiveViews acquisition is intended to complement Reporting Services, which was released in Jan. 2004, by allowing nontechnical users to create reports.

Reporting Services includes Report Designer, a graphical environment for creating reports, but this tool requires Visual Studio .NET 2003, making it unsuitable for business users. In contrast, ActiveViews offers a simple report-creation client through which business users can design and publish reports. ActiveViews runs on top of Reporting Services, using Reporting Services for lower-level functions such as report management and delivery.

Because it is aimed at developers creating managed reporting infrastructure, Reporting Services has offered an opportunity for ISVs to supplement it with the type of self-service reporting capabilities planned by ActiveViews. Now, ISVs working on reporting features targeted at nontechnical users, such as Microsoft partner Cizer Software, could find demand for those features eroding as Reporting Services absorbs ActiveViews’ technology.

ActiveViews had planned a product beta in the second quarter of 2004 and a version 1.0 release before the end of 2004; however, Microsoft has not indicated when functionality based on the acquired technology will be available in Reporting Services. SQL Server Reporting Services 2005, which will probably be available at the same time as the next major version of SQL Server (mid-2005), seems a likely delivery vehicle.

Although financial details of the deal were not disclosed, Microsoft has said that two developers in ActiveViews’ staff of five employees will join the company.

The ActiveViews Web site is www.activeviews.com.