New Client To Extend OLAP Reach

A new standalone charting and reporting product called the Microsoft Data Analyzer will join the Office Family in fall 2001. Reportedly based on technology acquired from Maximal Innovative Intelligence (Microsoft declined to confirm this), Data Analyzer will enable business users to extract and view data from online analytic processing (OLAP) databases. Microsoft hopes Data Analyzer will expand the OLAP market to millions of Office users and drive sales of SQL Server, which includes a bundled OLAP server that will work with Data Analyzer. Data Analyzer also signals a small expansion by Microsoft itself into the OLAP client business, territory currently held by partners.

OLAP is a database technology for interactively analyzing historical data collected from a business’ operations. It’s a central element in many “business intelligence” systems, which companies use to give decision makers useful information collected from company operations, allowing them to answer business questions such as “Which was our best-selling product last quarter?” or “How effective was the Internet ad campaign?” (See “OLAP Breaks Ground for SQL Server” on page 6 of the May 2001 Update.)