Feed the information to users but give them the intuitive tools to create their own reports. The move to the browser makes information deployable, and usable, at every level of the corporation. Before Web access, deploying data to the field staff might not have been cost effective at all. Or the cost of distributing and maintaining a client would have limited its scope. Now a field sales organization can easily get a report of a shipment to a customer, check back-order status, all critical things that make the sales rep that much more effective.
Web access is also well adapted to the development of the information appliance.
Rapid deployment is the key benefit of a Web interface to an ERP system, but the Web is not just the mechanism of choice, it's the only way to deliver all those information touch points. Web reporting technology brings a level of versatility to complement and extend the systems that ERP vendors provide. Work began on Calypso two years ago to replace an in-house legacy system that should have provided ubiquitous access to expense data, but in practice did not. It was complicated. Web access was built into Calypso from day one.