Version 5 of Arbor Software Corp’s Essbase on-line analytical server is supposed to beta in August and generate revenue by the end of the year. New features include replication and the linking of distributed Essbase servers enabling multiple sites to share copies of the same data and users can drill back and forth between cubes located on different servers; dynamic calculation on selected pre-determined fields; and better multiprocessing support. Version 6 will supposedly incorporate Corba and a message-oriented architecture – as opposed to the current API architecture, more support for Java support. The majority of Essbase users view their data in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and typically use the data for planning, budgeting or product line analysis.
