The power of the BusinessObjects universe, the semantic layer behind Web Intelligence and other SAP analytics tools, is unquestioned. As SAP BusinessObjects customers looked beyond SAP for data visualization tools, a cottage industry of third-party vendors sprung up to bring the power of the universe to non-SAP tools like Microsoft Power BI and Tableau.
It has been five years since I last visited the topic of third-party connectors to SAP BusinessObjects universes to supply data to non-SAP dashboarding tools. This article reflects what is currently going on in the marketplace.
A lot has changed in five years. First, SAP revised their analytics statement of direction in June 2022 to announce a new version of SAP BusinessObjects— BI 2025 (released in March 2025). Since then, SAP has also announced BI 2027 and BI 2029, extending feature and patch support of the SAP BusinessObjects product through at least December 31, 2031.
Second, Microsoft Power BI has clearly eclipsed Tableau in popularity. It’s unclear if this is a reaction to perceived negligence by Salesforce since acquiring Tableau in 2019 or the large jump in licensing costs since its acquisition.
Third, while it is possible to find third-party connectors to other analytics tools like Qlik, it would seem that Microsoft Power BI and Tableau are currently leading the analytics pack in 2025.
Along with these changes in the market, the number of vendors with connectors between BusinessObjects and other tools has dwindled. Despite having marketing materials and inbound contact forms, I was unable to get responses from Kobaltek, Toreo Data, or UniverseBridge about the current state of their products. That leaves only InfoBurst by InfoSol.
InfoBurst by InfoSol
InfoSol was founded in 1997 and released InfoBurst in 2005 as a solution to customer pain points with BusinessObjects Broadcast Agent (BCA). InfoBurst has continued to evolve with the times, first to the XI R2, BusinessObjects becoming an SAP product for version 3.0/3.1, and its evolution to a 64-bit BI 4.x platform. Along the way, InfoBurst added connectivity to Tableau in 2020 closely followed by Power BI in 2021 (release 2020.4). InfoBurst is generally updated about 3-4 times each year, with new features and enhancements often suggested by its customers. Its latest release, 2025.4.0, was released this month (December 2025).
InfoSol
2340 W. Parkside Lane
Unit H 106
Phoenix, AZ 85027
623-707-7600 phone
623-707-7601 fax
- InfoBurst PBI product page
- InfoBurst Tab product page
- InfoBurst on YouTube
The universe is too good for SAP to keep it all to itself. Which is why SAP should join the Open Semantic Interchange.
DISCLAIMER: I had no idea when I started revising this article earlier in 2025 that I would now be working with Paul Grill at InfoSol. But now that I’m an employee, I’d be grateful if you take a look at its consulting and product offerings.
This is only a list of available software packages and should not be considered an endorsement. Message me privately if you have additions or corrections to the list. Is your organization using one of these solutions to extend universes to non-SAP tools? Share a comment below describing which tool you’re using, which analytics tools you’re connecting universes to, and any success stories or pitfalls.
