TM1 Web 9 is all about speed, scalability and usability, said Dave Menninger, vice president of worldwide marketing and product management in an interview with Computer Business Review last week.
TM1 Web lets end users create real-time Web-based worksheet (Websheets) directly from Microsoft Excel and distribute them using a novel BIshare technology. The software is built on Applix’s core TM1 multidimensional (OLAP) server and sits as part of Applix’s expanding TM1 Suite which for performance management.
Menninger highlighted a fundamentally new .NET architecture in TM1 Web 9 that lets users view and interact with multidimensional TM1 cube data directly from Web browsers. We’ve completely re-written it from the ground up to be 100% .NET, Menninger said.
On top of this built some .NET components that get rendered in Internet Explorer web browser.
The previous versions of TM1 Web implemented a C and Java APIs.
The .NET architecture has allowed for the introduction of new capabilities, in particular ad hoc browsing of data via the Web.
Before users could only view data via the Web and not pivot or drill on the data. In TM1 Web 9 these Web pages are exposed as ASPX and .NET which allow users to change the selection of data presented in the Web client.
Menninger said another key benefit is scalability. When we introduced TM1 Web a couple of years ago its targeted departmental users. Its success has now led to much larger deployments.
He added: In version 9 we’ve dramatically improved performance profile of TM1 Web, which enables companies to scale up to much larger deals.
Menninger said Applix has tested TM1 9 Web for 300 concurrent users and came back with server load response times as low as 2 seconds.
TM1 Web 9 also comes with a strong dose of usability enhancements, implemented redesigned toolbars and interfaces to ease the visual presentation and manipulation of data – allowing among other things, users to display tabular and graphical data on the same screen.
Other key functional enhancements include adding a charting capability to the TM1 cube viewer. The company has also licensed the same Dundas charting engine used by Microsoft’s SQL Server Reporting Services for TM1 Web for ad hoc and Web publishing capabilities.
User-friendly features like freeze-framing and Acrobat-like zoom control, simple and advanced selection mode, proportional spreading (i.e. using a spreadsheet or part of a spreadsheet to and pre-submit reviewing capabilities are also new in TM1 Web 9.
The company is also planning to shift TM1’s administration interface to a thin-client environment as well. We’ve begun this process in this release with some user-oriented administration capabilities like changing passwords of interrogating properties of metadata items, Menninger said.
After a shaky period, during which the company (wisely) shed its CRM business and refocused on its core TM1 analytics server, Applix seems to have stabilized as a business.
The company has garnered over 2,000 customers and is coming off a running at six consecutive quarters of profitability. It also has $21m in the bank.
We’re continuing to focus on the BPM market and leverage the brand equity of our core TM1 analytics server, Menninger said.
Applix’s strategy of throwing its lot with Microsoft technology also seems to be paying off. TM1 continues to leverage Excel. We’ve made a deliberate decision to leverage Microsoft’s platform which we’re finding is consistent with the user community attracted to TM1, Menninger said.
It’s true that TM1 is used extensively in finance departments, which are also heavy Excel users.
Menninger admitted that Applix’s TM1 suite isn’t perhaps as broadly focused as other BI and performance management solutions from Cognos Inc and Hyperion Solutions Corp.
Its true that we’re a lot more narrowly focused in terms of breadth. Sure these vendors reach a little further than we do, in areas like production reporting which we simply hand over to Microsoft’s Reporting Services.
