Kirk Cunningham (pictured to the left)
is Executive Director, Marketing at Business Objects, creators
of Crystal Xcelsius software. Prior to Business
Objects, Kirk was VP Marketing and Planning at Estee Lauder, responsible
for launching and growing their successful ecommerce subsidiary.
Before Lauder, Kirk served as VP Marketing at InterPacket Networks
and VP Marketing at Elemental Software. In 1986, Kirk founded Crossfield
Marketing, a Silicon Valley consulting firm with clients including
Apple, HP, Xilinx, Raychem and Tandem Computers. He has BS Engineering
and an MBA, both from Stanford University.
Geetesh:
Tell us more about Business Objects and Crystal
Xcelsius.
Kirk:
Business Objects is the world’s leading business intelligence
(BI) software company. We are a billion-dollar organization
with more than 37,000 customers -- including over 80 percent
of the Fortune 500 -- and a network of more than 3,000 partners
and resellers. Crystal Xcelsius is PC software
that transforms ordinary spreadsheets into interactive charts,
graphs, data presentations, Excel dashboards, visual models
and more. With a simple point-and-click interface you can
import your Excel spreadsheet and create stunning data presentations
that will steal the show at your next meeting. Crystal Xcelsius
is tightly integrated with Microsoft Office, so with one
click you can exports your dashboards and presentations to
PowerPoint, Word, PDF documents and the Web. It’s available
in three versions:
Crystal Xcelsius Standard - Crystal
Xcelsius Standard is the perfect way to get started in
the exciting area of interactive data visualization. You
get point-and-click ease, and all the functionality you
need for innovative data presentations including maps,
animated charts, tools and extensive custom design capabilities.
Crystal Xcelsius Professional- Crystal
Xcelsius Professional is for those who want to take their
data presentations and Excel dashboards to the next level.
You receive all the features of Crystal Xcelsius Standard,
plus advanced components and key features like drilldown
animated charts, one-click export to Adobe PDF, broad Excel
function support and more. AND, you get the capability
to add-on future components, maps, skins and new functionality.
Crystal Xcelsius Workgroup - Crystal
Xcelsius Workgroup provides everything you need to create
powerful business dashboards and visual models for your
workgroup that connect live to your BI system or company
database via XML, SOAP Web Services or other connectors.
Your team can easily share these business dashboards within
PowerPoint, Word, PDF, SharePoint, and the Web.
Geetesh:
How did Crystal Xcelsius evolve and what directions
are you looking at for the product in the future.
Kirk:
Xcelsius was the brain child of Santiago and Santi Becerra,
a father and son team and co-founders of privately held Infommersion,
Inc. It provided business users a method of interacting with
their data that was previously unachievable -- via interactive
dashboards and business models that contained the stunning
graphics and interactivity of Macromedia Flash. Following
its acquisition by Business Objects in November 2005, Xcelsius
became part of the Crystal product line, and today works
in conjunction with the rest of the Business Objects product
suite, including Crystal Reports, Live Office, and more.
Geetesh:
What benefits does Crystal Xcelsius offer over built-in
charting capabilities in Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel?
Kirk:
Crystal Xcelsius provides the business user with the ability
to display data via breathtaking Flash graphs, charts, and
gauges. The visual quality of these data models far surpasses
anything currently available within Microsoft PowerPoint
or Excel. More importantly, Crystal Xcelsius allows the presenter
to modify their underlying data assumptions on the fly, simply
by moving sliders or dials on their screen. The result: the
presenter can display the results of an unlimited number
of scenarios in real time, all within a single PowerPoint
slide. Presenting the same analysis via Excel would require
hours of work and dozens of slides.
Geetesh:
Tell us more about your support infrastructure.
Kirk:
Crystal Xcelsius offers free technical support to both trial
users and customers. Support is available via phone at 858-552-6674,
Monday-Friday 7a.m. - 6p.m. PST, or via email at crystalxcelsiussupport@businessobjects.com.
A free trial is available for both Crystal Xcelsius Professional
and Crystal Xcelsius Workgroup at: www.xcelsius.com.
Geetesh:
Can you share some trivia with Indezine readers
-- some tips, something funny, or just an unconventional usage
of Xcelsius?
Kirk:
Did you know Crystal Xcelsius can be used for more than just
business dashboards and data presentations? Click the
following links for some "unconventional" data
presentations you won't find anywhere else!
