Arbor Software Links Essbase to the World Wide Web; Essbase Web Gateway Delivers Operational OLAP To Web Browsers.SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 15, 1996--Arbor Software Corporation today announced the Essbase Web Gateway, a multi-threaded, server application that enables high-speed, interactive, read and write access to the Essbase multidimensional database server for operational OLAP (OnLine Analytical Processing) Decision support software that allows the user to quickly analyze information that has been summarized into multidimensional views and hierarchies. OLAP tools are used to perform trend analysis on sales and financial information. (on-line analytical processing (database) On-Line Analytical Processing - (OLAP) A category of database software which provides an interface such that users can transform or limit raw data according to user-defined or pre-defined functions, and quickly and interactively examine the results in various dimensions ) over the World Wide Web. The Essbase Web Gateway delivers essential Essbase features including data drill-down/up/across, pivot, slice and dice Refers to rearranging data so that it can be viewed from different perspectives. The term is typically used with OLAP databases that present information to the user in the form of multidimensional cubes similar to a 3D spreadsheet. See OLAP. and interactive on-line update to corporate users through forms-compatible Web browsers and Web servers. The Essbase Web Gateway operates as a translation layer between the Web Server and Essbase. The gateway rapidly converts Essbase query results into standard HTML HTML in full HyperText Markup Language Markup language derived from SGML that is used to prepare hypertext documents. Relatively easy for nonprogrammers to master, HTML is the language used for documents on the World Wide Web. pages for live, interactive data delivery over the World Wide Web. "The Essbase Web Gateway delivers the analytical power of Essbase to anyone with a Web browser The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser's Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. ," said Jim Dorrian, president and CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. of Arbor Software. With the Essbase Web Gateway, corporations can quickly, easily and securely communicate critical business information to and from employees worldwide." First To Support Web-Based Operational OLAP Decision support systems have traditionally been designed to help knowledge workers analyze historical data. Historical analysis is an important component of decision support, however analysts and line managers must also be able to revise plans and update forecasts based upon changing market conditions. An Operational OLAP solution integrates "what happened?", "what-if?" and "what next?" analysis and planning capabilities within a single, network-centric software system. The Essbase Web Gateway, in conjunction with Essbase, is the first OLAP system to deliver these capabilities to knowledge workers over the Internet or intranets. Analytical Power and Scalability The Essbase Web Gateway supports powerful Essbase functions such as data drill-down/up/across, pivot, slice and dice and interactive update. These interactive data analysis features and the ability to deliver live multidimensional reports from Essbase, make it possible for corporations to deploy applications such as sales analysis, management reporting, enterprise information systems, budgeting, planning and forecasting over the World Wide Web. The Essbase Web Gateway's multi-threaded architecture, combined with Essbase's speed of thought query performance, enable it to support very-large user communities. All queries are run directly against live Essbase data and still receive consistently rapid response. Rapid Application Development and Deployment The Essbase Web Gateway provides the corporate Webmaster with complete control over report presentation formats and data-access options from within a Web page. This control is provided through a library of nearly fifty custom Essbase HTML instructions, or tags, that are fully documented and provided with the gateway product. Using the Essbase tags, the Webmaster can provide live access to data within Essbase through fixed reports, parameter-driven report templates and ad hoc For this purpose. Meaning "to this" in Latin, it refers to dealing with special situations as they occur rather than functions that are repeated on a regular basis. See ad hoc query and ad hoc mode. data access grids. The Essbase HTML tags enable Webmasters to create and deliver access to Essbase applications through Web pages in minutes. As few as four of the Essbase tags can be used to easily define and deliver a fully-functioning, interactive Web-based connection to Essbase. Open Architecture Compatible with industry standard HTML 3.0, the Essbase Web Gateway works with forms-compatible Web browsers and Web servers over intranets or the Internet. Webmasters are able to use HTML-based Web authoring tools, Java or JavaScript in conjunction with the Essbase Web Gateway and Essbase tags to build robust OLAP applications. Secure OLAP Applications Web-based OLAP applications deployed using Essbase and the Essbase Web Gateway provide a high-level of data security. Using secure Web servers such as the Microsoft Internet Information Server See IIS. Microsoft Internet Information Server - Internet Information Server or Netscape Commerce Server, data transferred between the Web browser and the Web server are fully encrypted. This data encryption combined with Essbase's cell-level data access controls, ensures a high level of data security both from a network and a user-access perspective. "The Essbase Web Gateway is unique for the Web, let alone for OLAP," said Lindsay Gillies, director of retail EIS (1) (Executive Information System) An information system that consolidates and summarizes ongoing transactions within the organization. It provides top management with all the information it requires at all times from internal and external sources. at Fidelity Investments. "I haven't seen anything else on the Web that delivers this degree of intuitive data navigation. With OLAP, delivering data is closely related to delivering data navigation that's the real power for users and the Essbase Web Gateway shows we can do both at a very low cost via an intranet, and using simple, standard HTML." Pricing and Availability The Essbase Web Gateway is priced at $10,000 per Essbase server supported. The Essbase Web Gateway will be released for beta testing (programming) beta testing - Testing a pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software by making it available to selected users. This term derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout the in the second quarter of calendar year 1996. About Essbase Essbase is a multidimensional database optimized for business planning, analysis and management reporting applications such as profitability analysis, budgeting, forecasting, planning, financial consolidations, sales analysis and EIS. Based upon a true, client/server architecture, Essbase supports multi-user read and write access, large-scale data capacity, robust analytical calculations, flexible data navigation and consistent, speed of thought response times. The Essbase server's open architecture supports direct data access using standard spreadsheets or leading third-party query, reporting and EIS tools. Essbase scales from a single-user solution to an enterprise OLAP (on-line analytical processing) server within a data warehousing strategy. Essbase operates on servers running Windows NT, OS/2 and UNIX UNIX Operating system for digital computers, developed by Ken Thompson of Bell Laboratories in 1969. It was initially designed for a single user (the name was a pun on the earlier operating system Multics). across all major networks connected to Windows, Macintosh and UNIX clients. Pricing starts at $37,500 for a five concurrent user license. About Arbor Software Arbor Software Corporation (Nasdaq:ARSW ARSW Annual Report of the Secretary of War ) develops and markets client/server software for business planning, analysis and management reporting. Arbor's products are used by more than 650 corporations spanning a broad range of industries and business applications including Bank of Boston, Emery Worldwide, Fidelity, Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Morning daily newspaper. Established in 1881, it was purchased and incorporated in 1884 by Harrison Gray Otis (1837–1917) under The Times-Mirror Co. (the hyphen was later dropped from the name). , Neutrogena, Pennzoil, PEPSICO, Prudential and Sears. Arbor has over 100 application, services, tools and platform partners, including Comshare, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Microsoft See Microsoft and IBM. . A Arbor's products are sold direct, as well as through system integrators and VARs worldwide. Arbors offices are located in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , Sunnyvale, Washington D.C., London and Paris. More information on Arbor products and services can be found on Arbor's World Wide Web (WWW WWW or W3: see World Wide Web. (World Wide Web) The common host name for a Web server. The "www-dot" prefix on Web addresses is widely used to provide a recognizable way of identifying a Web site. ) site at http://www.arborsoft.com. -0- Note to Editors: Essbase is a registered trademark of Arbor Software Corporation. Any other product or company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. For Arbor Software product information, please call 800/858-1666. CONTACT: Arbor Software Joanna McMillan, 408/541-4035 jmcmillan@arborsoft.com or JONA Jona, variant of Jonah. Group Jamie ODonnell, 415/552-1515 jamie@jonagroup.com |
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