As a clarification, I should say that we'll mainly be doing batch processes whereby we'll generate around 400 reports and distribute them in some way (e.g. by zipping/emailing them out). Based upon what I know about using the .NET report projects, doing batch processes of this type aren't very efficient, and the Excel outputs take a long time to generate from ASP and open afterwards. That's why I've steered clear of these methods thus far. But given...

I've spent the past few weeks looking into various reporting mechanisms that will enable our company to create automated Excel reports in a "better" way.

Currently, we're running a copy of Excel on the server and using VB.NET to create Excel objects through Interop. It works just fine (mostly), but I hate to keep running Excel on the server for the standard reasons.

Basically, I have two alternatives in mind,...