Following Seagate Software Inc’s release of its Crystal Info 6 online analytical processing product earlier this week (CI No 3,303), competitor Brio Technology Inc has launched its own business intelligence server, also incorporating push technology. Brio’s John Morley regards Seagate’s predictions that it will out sell Brio by early next year as optimistic. The Brio Enterprise Server has three basic components; the OnDemand Server, Broadcast Server and the Server Administrator. OnDemand includes the company’s adaptive report technology. The Broadcast server runs scheduled queries and pushes reports and documents out to the web, client-server and mobile users via FTP, email, web and file servers. The server administrator provides systems management capabilities. Other family members of the product line have been upgraded, including BrioQuery, a direct rival to the Seagate offering. Palo Alto, California-based Brio, thought to be considering an initial public offering in the near future, has recently won Hewlett-Packard Co and Sun Microsystems Inc as customers. HP is to use Brio as its standard business intelligence tool across its business, while Sun is said to be shifting from Business Objects SA’s business intelligence tool to Brio Enterprise, Brio having written a special 100% Pure Java edition. Despite that, Brio says it’s not turning its back on Microsoft Corp’s ActiveX in favor of Java. Brio Enterprise Server runs on Windows NT now, with Sun Solaris, HP-UX and IBM AIX versions due by year-end. No prices were given.
