I have just posted a late-breaking and somewhat surprising update to my annual comparison of Desktop Schedulers. R-Tag has just released a “Community Edition” of their Report Manager … and made it FREE. This free edition has all the same features as the previous paid edition except for one, the ability to run SSRS and SQL Reports.  But it can certainly run and schedule all of your Crystal Reports.  It uses the latest runtime engine and it can serve as both a viewer and a scheduler.

Of course the free product doesn’t come with the support that you would get if you purchased the Pro Edition ($749).  And, if you look at the comparison on the Community Edition page you will see that there are a few special features that you only get with the Pro Edition. But, the Community Edition still represents a powerful product with an impressive set of features – more than enough for most users.  Just look at the R-Tag column in my feature grid (PDF) and you will see that their feature list is at the high end. And it is certainly hard to argue with free.

If you try it and want to share your feedback, please drop me a note.