One of my readers pointed out a dramatic change in the SAP online store.  Up until mid May you could purchase older versions of Crystal Reports products going back to v8.5.   But that changed suddenly and now their is nothing available prior to CR 2008. There was no announcement or explanation so I asked someone at SAP why the change was made.  I didn’t get much of an explanation yet, but apparently there is some issue with all of these older version and open-source software.  It must be serious to merit pulling all these products.

The bad news is that without these prior versions there would be no COM API options.  The good news is that I have heard that XI will be released again which will provide at least one COM compatible version.

I will add more information as it becomes available.