14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has made one of the new main additions of the next iteration of its data platform available to customers as a standalone download. In this regard, users are now free to download Report Builder 3.0 straight from the Redmond company. The software giant has very quietly released Report Builder 3.0 as a standalone download, and users will be able to grab an MSI package, according to Microsoft’s Robert M. Bruckner. On August 11, 2009, Bruckner revealed that Microsoft was “looking into releasing a separate "feature pack" download soon, which will include the MSI installer for the stand-alone Report Builder 3.0.”
“The new release of Report Builder delivers intuitive report authoring capabilities to end users. By offering an enhanced authoring experience for business users, Report Builder benefits power users that are looking for a more sophisticated authoring environment. In addition to rich data visualization with charts and gages, Report Builder 3.0 supports for geospatial visualization (maps) to produce new insights and discoveries by combining geospatial data with business information. Additionally, end users will experience significant performance improvements, with enhanced ability to use Report Builder in server mode. This allows for much faster report processing with caching of datasets on the report server when toggling between design and preview modes,” a member of the SQL Server team stated.
Last week Microsoft released, first for MSDN and TechNet subscribers and subsequently for the public, the first community technology preview of SQL Server 2008 R2. Report Builder 3.0 is an integral part of the August 2009 CTP of SQL Server 2008 R2, allowing users to leverage geospatial visualization support in order to get a deeper insight on business data in concert with mapping, routing, and custom shapes, specific of geospatial information. Customers can of course grab SQL Server 2008 R2 August CTP and find that Report Builder 3.0 is already included into the development milestone.
SQL Server 2008 R2 August 2009 CTP is available for download here.