Hyperion Solutions Corp, the analytical applications provider, says it intends to attract the customer relationship management and e-commerce marketplaces with its Essbase 6.0 OLAP server. The new release contains the ability to categorize ‘attributes’ which are more descriptive, non-numeric elements such as product information used in e-commerce sites. Version 5.0 claimed to have the same facility, but the system tagging, for categorizing dimensions for database entry was set up incorrectly, and Essbase 6.0 corrects this says the company. Essbase for NT, Sun’s Solaris and AIX operating systems will start shipping in December. Essbase has been in beta testing at 100 sites worldwide since April. A Linux version will be available for beta testing in the next six months.
The changes are motivated by several factors, firstly the increased data processing requirements associated with internet applications. To meet this, the Sunnyvale, California-based company has improved its data caching system, which EMEA director of product marketing Ian Macdonald claims gives 30% improvement on data loading and calculation.
Essbase 6.0 supports concurrent log-ons, rather than the queuing system, an advance driven by the spreading use of analysis tools throughout enterprises. The company claims it can support up to 10,000 simultaneous users.
Hyperion says it is undecided on whether to build or buy CRM applications, but it will probably depend on gaining applications developed by the 40 or so partners in the Hyperion Alliance Program. These include extraction, transfer and loading (ETL) firms such as Informatica, Acta and Hummingbird and business intelligence vendors like Business Objects, Brio and Cognos.
Nigel Pendse, a UK independent OLAP analyst, was less impressed with the Hyperion CRM strategy, saying that Oracle’s Express OLAP server had attribute capabilities fifteen years ago. He also scorned its benchmark index, APB-1, a set of standards endorsed by the OLAP Council, saying that Oracle and Hyperion are the only companies to subscribe to it.
