Pure reporting or business intelligence tools are not the only way to provide a business intelligence solution using free software. I have discovered that portal systems do have reporting functionality built in. Three such open source portals are:

• Stringbeans portal has a chart portlet along with a report portlet.
• Metadot portal has a business version which has SQL reporting capabilty
• WebGUI has SQL reporting capabilities

In my quest to find a viable reporting solution I think this is a viable option. I like the fact that portals have other functionality that could be used to enhance the solution. Some of these functions are CMS, blogs, RSS syndication and other functionality associated with web pages. This would mean that the user is presented with the same interface for using the web site(in most cases the intranet) and for the reporting application. A vaible solution if one looks at it from the user's point of view.

The only disadvantage I can forsee is that the functionality might not meet all criteria for a reporting tool because this type of functionality is a add on and not the core function.

I will continue to update this post as evaluate these tools further. Please do post any information you may have with reporting tools associated with free portal applications.