I just purchased CR 2016, but it might just be a fluke of the SAP store.
One of my customers needs to buy a new copy of Crystal Reports. They asked if the should buy CR 2013 or CR 2016. I told them that CR 2016 was not yet released and they said it was listed in the SAP store. So I went to the Crystal Reports product page and hit “buy SAP Crystal Reports”. It took me to CR 2013. But then I clicked the product name to see the store listing for CR 2013. and on that page, in the list of “Other Versions” of the product, was a link to “SAP Crystal Reports 2016“. That link allowed me to put Crystal Reports 2016 into my cart and purchase it.
I already have CR 2008 so I purchased the upgrade to CR 2016. I received a download link, downloaded the software and started to install it. But the download link didn’t come with an installation key. I received the key 48 hours later.
I still have a suspicion that the store prepared the purchase page to be ready for the upcoming release, but didn’t mean to make it visible. That would explain why the product page points to CR 2013. Also, no one else is selling or even mentioning CR 2016. SAP usually offers a big promotional discount on the current versions just before the new version is released and I haven’t seen that.
But despite all of that that the SAP store is selling CR 2016. And, I have confirmed that the new features listed in my previous blog post are actually in the live product.