XpandedReports
I got an announcement late today that Xpanded Reports is 'hanging up the towel' (throwing the baby out with the dishwater) and "quitting business forever" (as all the furniture stores call it).
I don't know about you but I am shocked, but even more so by the fact that they have only given 12-days notice to their paying customers. For some of my clients who rely on this product for their 'monthly reporting' to meet very specialized presentation format requirements, this is going to be a real hardship to find a replacement so quickly.
I have 'always' liked Xpanded Reports, true I liked it better when it was a stand-alone product before moving to the cloud. This product gave 'ordinary users' a way to produce relatively sophisticated reports in a simple format that looked like and had the feel of QuickBooks reporting. While there are other sophisticated products, like QQube and QODBC, both of which I also like 'a lot' they require a lot more expertise and a much longer 'learning curve' and in my way of thinking most typical users will be forced to rely on a ProAdvisor (or other expert in these products) to help them develop reports using those advanced reporting packages.
Unfortunately, this closing of the Xpanded Reports cloud just shows us that 'cloud based products' give their Users absolutely no control....when we sign up we are no longer the 'master of our own universe'....our master is now on some cloud and when the cloud sails away, it is gone having our $$$ and left us with nothing in the future. At least if we had purchased the software and had it 'in hand' we might still be able to use it for another year or perhaps longer (even without support). No such luck here since Xpanded Reports abandoned their desktop based product in favor of a cloud based substitute several years ago.
Good-bye Xpanded Reports, you will be missed; but it seems as though you could have given us a more supportive exit plan than 12-days.