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September 18, 2001

In this Issue:

Spheres of Influence

Newcomer iSpheres introduces "event-driven OLAP"

In Brief

Opposing Forces. SAP AG's subsidiary SAP Portals (originally TopTier Software) has formed an alliance with former ERP archrival Baan, which is now part of Invensys PLC's Software Systems Division. Baan will embed SAP Portals' software integration technology into its iBaan Portal solution.

Desktop Analytic Spotlight. Whitelight Systems Inc. has released single-user packages based on its enterprise Analytic Application Suite. The company will market Analyst Desktop and Analyst Desktop Premium to individual business analysts looking to move beyond spreadsheets.

Unicenter Strategy. Computer Associates previewed its Unicenter 3.0 e-business infrastructure solution at CA World in July. The company said it has transformed Unicenter into a set of integrated, modular components so that businesses can adopt it as a scalable architecture. Version 3.0 also provides new visualization and intelligence features.

Procurement Power. Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions has struck a deal with Clarus Corp. to provide E-Procure, a customized, Internet-based, procurement-supply chain solution.

E-Procure will support realtime purchase order creation, approval workflow, and order processing and is integrated with other Great Plains' solutions.

No matter the industry you're in, you can probably think of a way you'd like to use the insight you've gained from historical information to respond in real time to critical business events: capture sales opportunities before they pass, respond to supply chain emergencies while there's still time to recover, and so on. Several vendors are trying to meet this widespread demand.

Informatica Corp. and MicroStrategy Inc. each announced strategies in this area in 2001 with Informatica PowerCenter 5 and the MicroStrategy Narrowcast Server, and it's what Searchspace's Intelligent Enterprise Framework is all about. Another vendor - iSpheres Corp. - adds special value with its proprietary technology.

Hyperion Solutions Corp. announced a partnership with iSpheres in order to deliver what the company calls "event-driven OLAP" to customers. Behind the joint sales and marketing efforts, the partnership amounts to development of a prebuilt interface between Hyperion Essbase and iSpheres' MetaApp Framework.

The framework will take intelligence from Essbase's analysis of historical data, interpret it as rules, and poll information sources from both internal and external sources. Rules prescribe actions for iSpheres MetaApp to take when their specified conditions arise.

While the idea isn't that unusual, iSpheres' MetaApp Framework looks like it may enable especially good execution of the idea. For one thing, iSpheres has a proprietary technology called the Schemalyzer, which is supposed to greatly ease integration of data from all kinds of external sources by inferring the context of data from any text-based representation.

Another proprietary component, called the Conceptualyzer, learns by example. For instance, you can feed a scanned-in resume to the system as an ideal example, and it will seek out resumes from a job board that approximate this ideal.

Also, if a rule results in email notification to a person, the iSpheres email will include a link that brings the person directly to the relevant intersections in the multidimensional cube. For business users, finding the correct area of the cube is sometimes very difficult.

CEO and cofounder of iSpheres Santosh Alexander said he hopes the company will form partnerships with other vendors of OLAP engines as well. The company has already partnered with IBM and i2 to deliver supply-chain meta-applications.

— Jeanette Burriesci

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