Kenan Technologies Brings Leading OLAP Technology to Sun Platforms; Provides Data Retailing Complement to Sun Data Warehousing Initiative

Business Wire, July 25, 1995

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 25, 1995 -- Kenan(R) Technologies, a leading supplier of on-line analytical processing (OLAP) software and services for Fortune 1000 companies, today announced that it will make its Acumate(R) ES decision support toolset available on the Sun(R)SPARC(R)/Solaris(tm) network computing platform.

This move will provide a data retailing complement to Sun's new DecisionWarehouse Initiative, providing Sun users with a best- of-breed solution for gleaning strategic business information from enterprise-wide corporate data. The announcement was made today at Sun's Network Business Advantage Conference in New York City.

Data retailing describes the benefits offered by software tools like Kenan's Acumate ES, which extract, integrate, and repackage subsets of data from a data warehouse, and provide a full suite of decision support tools to deliver valuable customized business information to a broad range of end users. Acumate ES turns data in a data warehouse into useful business information by functioning like a retail outlet, or convenience store, for the corporate data warehouse -- organizing data into convenient categories, simplifying navigation through the data, and providing analysis tools to consumers of information technology.

"Data warehousing is emerging as an important tool for converting mountains of operational data into an easily accessible format that can be used to make faster, smarter marketing decisions," said Mark Tolliver, vice president, market development at Sun Microsystems Computer Company. "Our DecisionWarehouse program, announced today as part of Sun's Network Business Advantage, combines our own expertise and technology with that of industry-leading partners such as Kenan Technologies, providing customers with a proven framework for building a data warehouse and getting the most out of it."

"Our vision of data warehousing and data retailing truly complements the direction Sun is taking with its DecisionWarehouse Program," said John O'Rourke, Marketing Manager, Kenan Technologies. "The term data warehouse actually describes a strategy for delivering useful information to the end user. Sun's platform provides the specialized data storage capability, and Kenan's Acumate provides a unique set of tools for building high-end OLAP applications. The combination of these industry-leading technologies is a powerful solution for a wide range of functions including sales analysis, telecom marketing and customer analysis, and health care claims analysis."

Sun DecisionWarehouse Program

Sun's new DecisionWarehouse program brings together Sun's scaleable SPARC platform architecture and the Solaris operating system with partners like Kenan Technologies to enable customers to develop and implement effective data warehouse strategies.

Acumate ES

Kenan Technologies' Acumate ES includes a full set of tools for building data retailing applications, including:

Multiway(R), a powerful development environment, featuring a 4GL and the industry's most advanced and time-tested multidimensional database. The database includes standard application programming interfaces (APIs) to access the database functionality and powerful data loading tools, designed to assist database administrators in extracting and loading data from data warehouses and building specialized data retailing applications such as sales, customer and market analysis.

Acutrieve(tm), an off-the-shelf decision support system optimized for analysts and other data-intensive end-users, providing a generic decision support application for turning data into information.

Spreadsheet Toolkit, popular spreadsheet interfaces to the Multiway database. This tool is ideal for analysts who want to access subsets of multidimensional data in a familiar environment.

Acumate VBXs, a set of Visual Basic custom controls with powerful, Acumate-specific capabilities built in, for those wishing to develop their own application front ends under Windows.

Kenan Technologies, the product division of Kenan Systems Corporation, is a leading supplier of enterprise-wide decision support and transaction systems for strategic management support. In addition to Acumate ES, Kenan Technologies also offers Arbor(tm)/BP, a specialized billing and customer care application for telecom, cable TV and interactive service providers on Sun platforms. Kenan Technologies' world headquarters and research and development center are based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information on Kenan Technologies' products and services email info@kenan.com.

Sun Microsystems Computer Company (SMCC) is a world leader in design, manufacture and sale of network computing systems and is a division of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Recognized for quality and innovation, the company's SPARC workstation and multiprocessing servers each hold the No. 1 UNIX marketshare position. These systems are used primarily by businesses, educational institutions and governments worldwide for technical, commercial, industrial and software development applications.