>>Wider world.
OK. Since SAP bought Crystal Reports' developer, that may have something to do with the ramp down. But lets not forget incompetence: Cloverleaf had a huge footprint in the interface engine world until purchased by private market wonks who managed to tank it. And of course there's quality, since SSRS does have a good rep. Producing really good stuff like this may well be MS's future, similar to IBM's redefinition of itself after it lost the OS war to MS.
"... 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
