Applix Inc is in the process of morphing from a real-time spreadsheet specialist company to one that bestrides the decision support and rapid application development markets too. And it took another step down that road yesterday with the release of the Applix Anyware family of products to build and deploy applications over the Internet or any set of networked desktops. At the center is WebSheet, what the Westboro, Massachusetts company claims to be the first Java-based client-server spreadsheet with live links to real-time and historical databases and is extendible. The suite builds on Applix’s existing technology used in its Applixware real-time data access and analysis software, but the addition of Java broadens the base from where the data can be accessed: in short, any Java-enabled desktop. The company is aiming at the manufacturing, banking and finance, human resources, and securities trading markets with Anyware, which is out next quarter. The Anyware server is up on Sun Sparc, Silicon Graphics, AIX, DEC Unix and HP-UX and costs $5,000. Anyware RealTime WebData is needed for SQL database access and costs $200 per concurrent user. It supports Oracle, Informix, Sybase and CA-Ingres, as well as Arbor Software Corp’s Essbase. Anyware Web RealTime enables data to be retrieved from Reuters, Bloomberg, Dow Jones/Telerate, TIBco and other data distribution vendors and costs $1,000 per user. The Anyware tools are Innovators Workbench, WebSheet Innovators Extension and WebRealTime Innovators Extension. The Workbench will go for $2,500. There’s also a starter kit for $10,000 and volume discounts apply.
