ACADEMIA

SPSS Inc., the leading provider of predictive analytics, today announced the immediate availability of OLAP Hub(TM) 4.1, the newest release of the company's Web-based analytical reporting solution. OLAP Hub is the first analytical reporting tool that fully leverages Microsoft's .NET Framework. The product unlocks data that resides in Microsoft SQL Server(TM) 2000 Analysis Services, placing relevant, timely information in the hands of decision-makers in a secure, personalized manner. VeriTest certified OLAP Hub's compliance with the Application Specification for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 in the Query, Reporting and Analysis Tools category, ensuring that the product provides customers with the highest level of support for their Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Analysis Services investment. Using OLAP Hub, customers can reliably perform sophisticated analyses of large volumes of data. This new release represents a major advancement in the technology SPSS initially acquired from netExs, the developer of OLAP Hub, in 2002. Improvements to OLAP Hub, including enhanced scalability and easier administration of security rules for large groups, were completed to make the enterprise-class solution easier to deploy. Business analysts and managers can have instant access to detailed analyses from any location at any time. "OLAP Hub was the easiest tool to use, especially from the end-user standpoint," said Paul Dausman, director of product development at Innovative Health Strategies, a business solutions provider that delivers business intelligence solutions to companies in the pharmaceutical industry. "This was important, since we knew clients would need to deploy the solution to non-technical sales, marketing and financial professionals. From the IT manager's perspective, OLAP Hub offers additional advantages. We felt that OLAP Hub did a much better job of leveraging the power of OLAP than other tools we evaluated." Another current SPSS customer, the Harley-Davidson Motor Company (NYSE: HDI), plans to leverage the rich functionality of OLAP Hub for monitoring and analyzing "key performance indicators" as it enters its next century of business. According to Jim Keene, enterprise data warehouse senior project manager at Harley-Davidson, "To date, OLAP Hub has shown the ease of use, depth of functionality, and performance required for a positive return on investment." Leveraging .NET to Securely Leverage Infrastructure Investments OLAP Hub 4.1 is optimized for Microsoft's(R) .NET initiative, the company's software technologies for connecting information, people, systems, and devices through Web services. The result is a scalable, reliable platform that efficiently leverages an enterprise's existing infrastructure investments to securely share critical information across a broad range of decision makers. "With this upgrade, SPSS has made a significant investment in advancing the scalability and security of OLAP Hub," said Rod Reicks, product manager for SPSS Inc. "We've created a product that fully embraces the capabilities of Microsoft's .NET Framework to unlock the knowledge that is often obscured by mass volumes of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 data." With OLAP Hub 4.1, companies can now make the most of the features and performance improvements inherent in .NET, including improved security and easier integration with XML Web services including XML for Analysis. The .NET Framework also allows individual users to personalize and customize features--such as default reports, and display and presentation options--to best meet their decision-making needs. OLAP Hub features an enhanced security layer that simplifies the administration of permissions, balancing the broad data-access needs of the entire enterprise with the need to keep proprietary information safe. The new system associates permission profiles with users or groups to simplify the process of assigning and specifying application-feature access.