The most eye-catching upgrade is the inclusion of the newest release of Hyperion Solutions’ Essbase multidimensional OLAP server, which forms the heart of the ShowCase Essbase module. Essbase 7X was released towards the tail-end of last year and provides significant scalability options for loading and calculating multidimensional cubes via its new aggregated storage model. Also included is a new, optional Hyperion Visual Explorer feature for creating custom data visualizations.
The ShowCase Analyzer front-end module has also been upgraded with additional relational data access options that allow users to pull together and analyze relational data alongside multidimensional data in a single, web-based view. Users can also toggle between relational-only and multidimensional-only views.
Finally the deployment capabilities of the ShowCase Enterprise Reporting module have been enhanced to allow users to publish and update Excel spreadsheets on their local desktops via a web browser; a useful addition since it removes the need to have any software installed on the desktop. SPSS also says that those companies still using green-screen reporting products will benefit from wider spreadsheet distribution.
The report designing interface now accommodates the creation of composite reports that embed multiple tables and charts that can be linked to other reports. Report scheduling, user administration, and user security capabilities have also been revamped.
SPSS bought the tools from its acquisition of Showcase back in 2000 for $94m. ShowCase focused mainly on the development of business intelligence tools for the AS/400 market (which later became iSeries) and later Windows NT as well.
The tools, cover a range of functions; report design, data extraction, analysis and data mining. The company’s OLAP product strategy leant heavily towards Hyperion Essbase.
ShowCase is targeted at customers that have bought an iSeries box with an ERP system loaded on it, said Kathy Konkel, product marketing management for iSeries at SPSS.
The tools are aimed primarily at analysts and developers. Users don’t need to be able to write C or Java, but they need to know their database, Konkel said.
SPSS has around 2,000 iSeries customers, mainly mid-market firms operating in the manufacturing and hospitality services industries. The most popular analytic applications are sales and financial analysis.
Konkel noted that iSeries customers are not as aggressive when it comes to new technologies. This is a conservative market. Customers buy iSeries because its reliable and they expect something that has been thoroughly tested, proven and packaged together.
She pointed to the inclusion of Hyperion’s OLAP server as an example. Essbase 7.1 has been out for some time now and we’ve delayed picking up support to allow Hyperion to work through the release a bit more. But she believes the wait has been worth it. We have one customer who expects to cut down a 30 hour load and build to under an hour by using the new storage option.
SPPS has already ported its Clementine data mining work bench tool onto iSeries. Konkel said the company is looking at a similar port of its predictive analytic applications suite, but did not give a specific release date.
ShowCase 7.0 is available this week. Pricing starts at $10k for a basic operational reporting solution. Adding sophisticated analytics and data mining can raise to the cost upwards of $150k.
