Good article. I have two opinions to share though:

1. I do not like that the development environment within BIDS was referred to as SSRS. Reporting Services is the whole package or module of MS SQL Server. The interface in BIDS should better be referred to as the Report Designer.

2. Microsoft did intend the Report Builder towards more business users rather than technical people. However, based on my experience, they did not accomplish it very well. Report Builder is only very easy if you want to simply and directly use fields from a database to build a very simple report. However, business needs often extend beyond that, and soon complications quickly arise with the need for special sorting, groupings (anyone experienced trying to sort a report with multiple groups?), calculated fields, parameters, linked reports and expressions.

We attempted to migrate from excel reporting to Reporting Services, and only a handful of technically-minded people managed to catch on with Report Builder 3.0.

The interface is also a little weird, and requires time and constant use in order to get used to it without forgetting - something which business users cannot afford much.

As a report developer however, I am quite happy with being able to develop professional-looking reports with Reporting Services.

With regards,

Andrew.