SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence has 3 different clients available:
- Web
- Java – Rich Internet Application
- Desktop – Desktop (Windows only)
Each of the Business Objects Web Intelligence clients have unique features that are not available in the other clients.
There isn’t a Business Objects Web Intelligence client that has all the features.
| Feature | Web | Java | Desktop |
|---|---|---|---|
| File > New Document | NO | YES | YES |
| Report Element > Linking > Add Document Link | YES | NO | NO |
| Report Element > Linking > Edit Document Link | YES | NO | NO |
| Format > Numbers > Define Custom Number Format | NO | YES | YES |
| Format > Numbers > Apply Custom Number Format | NO | YES | YES |
| Data Access > Data Providers > New Data Provider | NO | YES | YES |
| Data Access > Data Providers > Edit Data Provider | NO | YES | YES |
| Analysis > Conditional > New Conditional Formatting Rule | NO | YES | YES |
| Web Service Publisher | NO | YES | YES |
| Data Mode | NO | YES | YES |
| Excel Data Provider | NO | NO | YES |
| Text Data Provider | NO | NO | YES |
| Web Service Data Provider | NO | NO | YES |
The only difference between the Web Intelligence Rich Internet Application (Java) and the Web Intelligence Desktop client is that in the Windows Desktop client you can use excel, text, and web services as a data provider. If you don’t need these data provider sources, the java client has all the functions you need.
The Web client does not allow you to create new documents and data providers. However there is one significant feature of the Web Intelligence web client in that it allows you to create document links between documents.
This analysis is with Version 4.0 Support Package 2 Patch 13 of SAP Business Objects Web Intelligence.
If you know of a feature difference that I missed, please leave a comment.
John Levandowski 
Thanks very much. That is a quick and concise guide to the differences. Any idea as to why they would do that?
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I don’t know the reason for the differences. I do appreciate that SAP is slowly moving all the functionality to the web client so that users don’t need to struggle with installing and configuring a java client. This is very important for Mac users and iPad users.
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Is this comparison still accurate and relevant for 4.1?
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This is not up to date for 4.1. However I do know that in 4.1 the web client has increased functionality and allows for creating of documents and editing of queries (data providers).
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