Platinum Technology Inc is to launch an interface that enables its DecisionBase tool to extract data from an SAP transactional database for transformation and loading into a data warehouse or mart with data from other sources. The main advantage this offers over SAP’s own products, according to the manager of Platinum’s European data warehousing business unit, Jan Veltman, is that by using DecisionBase companies will be able to use a wide variety of reporting options, whereas SAP’s ETL tools mean they are obliged to also use its tools for reporting also. SAP has its own data warehousing solution, but it’s more rudimentary, and aimed at their own tools, explained Veltman. The product is to be formally unveiled at the German ERP vendor’s Sapphire user conference in Spain next week.
