>>LibreOffice has some nice features - but loses hands-down as an BI client against Excel. I dare say that few (if anyone) using Excel for OLAP access, PowerPivot functionality, or Excel Services would be happy with LibreOffice.
It's pretty new: forked in September 2010, beta testing since then with RC4 in January 2011 and first stable release a few days ago. How does it compare to your favorite BI clients just out of Beta on first release?
IMHO the key issue is that dominant LAMP providers are including it with their updates so LibreOffice will be mainstream, cross-platform, cross-database, free of charge and present on most of the updated servers out there. FWIW, Oracle was invited to and refused to join the LibreOffice project, demanding that OpenOffice people stand aside from it immediately: in October, 33 developers abandoned OO to join LibreOffice. IMHO it would be an error not to anticipate fast and furious progress.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
