Business Objects Announces BUSINESSOBJECTS MDX CONNECT, First Product in Enhanced OLAP Strategy

Business Wire, June 27, 2000

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 27, 2000

New Product Redoubles Business Objects Commitment to OLAP Data

Sources; Strengthens Integration with Microsoft's OLAP Services

Business Objects, a leading provider of e-business intelligence (e-BI) solutions, today unveiled a new strategy for accessing online analytical processing (OLAP) servers. In April 2000, Business Objects acquired OLAP@Work, a Canadian-based developer of high-end OLAP reporting tools. Business Objects is now using this acquired technology as the cornerstone of their strategy to deliver a new interface to OLAP data sources, such as Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services, and increase OLAP functionality for end users.

"Business Objects provides front-end data access and analysis tools; we are adamant about not being a database vendor," said Dave Kellogg, senior vice president of corporate marketing at Business Objects. "While each major relational database vendor is aggressively adopting OLAP strategies, our goal is to complement these offerings, not to compete with them. Fortunately, several of our competitors have chosen to compete as both business intelligence tools and data sources," continued Kellogg. "We believe that time will prove this strategy incorrect, and it creates an ideal opportunity for us to work with the major database vendors to complement their database technologies, and not as competitors against it."

The first step of the enhanced OLAP strategy from Business Objects is the announcement of a new product, BusinessObjects MDX Connect(TM), an interface to Microsoft's robust OLAP Server and the first product to result from the company's acquisition of OLAP@Work. BusinessObjects MDX Connect will provide an easy-to-use, powerful, and integrated interface to Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services.

Ease of use. BusinessObjects MDX Connect is built on the existing OLAP@Work query engine that enables non-technical users to easily answer sophisticated business questions based on multidimensional data. Users can create queries without having to understand the complexity of underlying database structures, such as multidimensional expressions (MDX), the query language used to access multidimensional data sources such as Microsoft OLAP Server.

Powerful. BusinessObjects MDX Connect exposes the power of the OLAP server to enterprise business intelligence users. With the new MDX OLAP panel, users can create a filter that enables them to get only the data that is relevant to their report. Filtering capabilities are fundamental to how a user thinks and sees his/her business and are extremely useful for users querying OLAP data. For example, with BusinessObjects MDX Connect a user can ask to see all the products that have sales greater than 100% of the quota that were sold to customers in California. In addition, users can perform more complex functions, such as creating calculations, through a simple wizard-driven interface. This enables non-technical users to access the data they need to create and share corporate reports.

With BusinessObjects MDX Connect, users can meet their enterprise reporting needs by combining both multidimensional and relational data sources all within the same BusinessObjects report. BusinessObjects MDX Connect is based on the existing OLAP@Work technology, designed specifically for accessing Microsoft's OLAP Server. With the acquisition of OLAP@Work, Business Objects has ensured that users get not only the technology, but also the development skills and relationship with Microsoft that was inherent in the OLAP@Work offering.

Integrated enterprise solution. BusinessObjects MDX Connect is a pop-up option from within BusinessObjects. Once users access the multidimensional data, they are automatically brought back into the familiar reporting and analysis environment of BusinessObjects. Users can slice and drill on data, create charts, and customize their reports, as well as publish corporate documents to the repository. Information technology staffs have the same enterprise features, such as security, administration, and web capabilities that are found in the Business Objects integrated suite of tools. This tight integration means that users don't need to learn a completely new application and IT staff don't have additional maintenance or deployment tools to roll out. BusinessObjects MDX Connect works with the existing Business Objects suite to provide an enterprise-ready query, reporting and analysis solution all from one integrated environment.

"Business Objects is one of the leaders in the business intelligence industry, and their membership in the Data Warehousing Alliance means that our joint customers can chose a business intelligence solution that is tightly integrated and based on the open standards of the Microsoft Data Warehousing Framework," said Steve Murchie, group product manager for SQL Server at Microsoft Corporation. "Their recent purchase of OLAP@Work illustrated their commitment to SQL Server Analysis Services, and we look forward to working together to deploy Analysis Services to even more enterprise customers."