Arbor Software Corp is hotting up its attack on Oracle Corp’s market (CI No 3,314) by adding rapid Java application development to its Essbase OLAP server through a deal with Mountain View, California-based AlphaBlox Corp. AlphaBlox is the provider of the Blox suite of interoperable web-based application building blocks (CI No 3,047). The companies have signed a co-operative development and joint marketing agreement, under which AlphaBlox will add support for Arbor Essbase to its AlphaBlox Enlighten product, which will enable rapid assembly and deployment of OLAP online analytical processing applications using AlphaBlox Enlighten’s Java Building Blox. The main line of Arbor’s attack on Oracle is on the ‘openness’ front. Arbor insists applications built using Oracle’s Express Objects are proprietary, and won’t talk to other Oracle applications. Arbor maintains it will not tie users into any type of front-end or applications if they want to use its Essbase multi-dimensional database server. The company says its Essbase customers and third party suppliers will be able to use AlphaBlox Enlighten to develop OLAP applications such as budgeting, forecasting planning and sales analysis, using the products Dynamic Application Assembly framework, Interblox. Enlighten will enable custom analysis applications to be built with building blocks which can be assembled on a web page, creating an interactive application accessible through any web browser. Peter Philpott, Arbor’s director for Northern Europe, says the whole thing is about giving customers choice. The can have native Windows interfaces using Essbase Objects, which use ActiveX controls in a web environment. They can also use Wired for OLAP, the analysis and presentation tool designed to operate both for client-server and web-based applications which Arbor acquired when it bought Orlando, Florida-based AppSource Corp. Now they have the option of Java, if that is the environment they wish to work in, Philpott says. He claims Arbor is rapidly moving into the applications space, and hints at much more to come next month in the core Essbase product.
