Such interest is prompting Business Objects SA, SAS Institute Inc. and some smaller vendors to bump up their hosted BI offerings in areas like reporting and analytics.

Paris-based Business Objects this week will roll out CrystalReports.com, an on-demand version of its popular Crystal Reports software. The new service will offer external users access to Crystal Reports documents via the Web. It can also notify users when new or updated reports are available.

A basic version, available this week, supports up to 10 external users. A premium edition, which will be available by June, will offer unlimited storage for unlimited users.

AbeTech Inc., a Maple Grove, Minn.-based bar code and labeling company, uses Crystal Reports to provide status reports to about 15 key clients. The company expects that the new premium service will let it provide reports first to 64 and eventually to 200 clients, said Chief Operating Officer Tim Anderson.

The packaged software currently requires half of one employee's time to distribute reports to the 15 clients, and "one of the biggest complaints we get from our clients is not getting status updates as often as they would like," he said.