Recently I have been fighting with a number of Crystal Reports distribution issues. Since Crystal Reports isn't native .NET but is com objects with a .NET wrapper, we have run into a number of dll versioning issues recently. For this reason, I enjoy seeing alternatives. While I won't be able to replace Crystal Reports on the huge accounting app I am working on, the new Report Viewer Control for VS 2005 looks promising.
The Report Viewer control has it's roots in SQL Server Reporting Services. While it used to require SQL Server as a repository, you can now generate reports for a client application without requiring a SQL Server repository for the reports.
For a better explanation of this and some code samples on how this is done, visit http://www.ftponline.com/vsm/2005_11/magazine/features/rjennings/.
While the report viewer control is not quite as functional as Crystal Reports, it is a good start. It has most of the reporting functionality commonly needed. Visit the above link and take a look for yourself.