Comshare International Ltd has launched Commander OLAP, an Executive Information System tool based on Arbor Software Corp’s Essbase. The companies claim that Essbase is the first technology to pass the 12 rules for On-Line Analytical Processing developed by Ted Codd, the man behind the concepts of relational database management systems. The idea behind OLAP is the ability to consolidate, view and analyse data according to multiple dimensions. Commander OLAP enables the user to view any number of data dimensions simultaneously, and can handle a range of data sources, including relational databases, mainframes and personal computers. It’s based on a local network application server, but gives mainframe-class performance, according to the company. Commander OLAP costs #70,000 for the full EIS application, including server software and support for 25 users.
