BIRT, which stands for Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools, is actually a development framework. Including the word "Tools" in the acronym is appropriate, since BIRT is in fact a collection of development tools and technologies used for report development utilizing the BIRT framework. BIRT is essentially not a product, but a series of core technologies on top of which products and solutions are built, similar in fashion to the Eclipse framework.

The focus of this book is on the most visible and familiar product built with the BIRT framework, which is the BIRT Report Designer. The BIRT Report Designer is an Eclipse plug-in that utilizes BIRT technologies to allow users to design reports in the BIRT document format. You can integrate it with your Java/J2EE applications to produce compelling reports.