Arbor Software Corp says it is confident of an imminent settlement with decision support application vendor, Comshare Inc (CI No 3,110) and is looking to the future following its announcement of new additions to its Essbase multi-dimensional database. Arbor’s director of solution marketing, Richard Clayton said: We are in the process of independent mediation and we believe it will be solved out of court soon. The companies ran into difficulties last year when Sunnyvale, California-based Arbor said it was suing Ann Arbor, Michigan company Comshare, alleging fraud and breach of contract over unpaid royalties, relating to Comshare’s distribution of Essbase (CI No 3,013). Comshare retaliated soon after and issued a counterclaim accusing Arbor of defamation, unfair competition, interference with economic relationships and breach of contract (CI No 3,031). The action doesn’t seem to have affected Arbor’s profits, reporting third quarter net profits last month up 84.9% at $1.5m, while revenues rose 84.6% at $12.5m (CI No 3,153).
Financial data mart
Clayton is positive about the future and says the company’s new Essbase financial data mart, adjustment module and online analytical processing production reporting tool, which saw Arbor collaborating with Seagate Technology Inc, will propel the company to greater profitability and status. Running on NT or Unix, the financial data mart is fully web-enabled, offering financial management capabilities, rapidly deploying enterprise- scale financial applications. Clayton said Arbor will be targeting the data mart at companies with an annual revenues of at least $1bn but added the company doesn’t have any specific industry in mind. The data mart was launched in the US last month and is apparently doing well, and is now available in Europe. Arbor was established four years ago and now employs 250 people. It believes the best sales channel is via indirect sales partnerships and earlier in the year signed a reseller agreement with IBM Corp.
