Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition

When something new doesn't pan out, sometimes it's better to suck it up and return to the proven path. That's basically the lesson SPSS has learned since its acquisition of ShowCase. SPSS is readying a new release of its business intelligence software suite for OS/400 shops, which was previously called STRATEGY and which is now named the ShowCase Suite. SPSS is also backing its OS/400 product line with a sales force that's sporting a new ShowCase focus.

When SPSS acquired ShowCase, in 2000, the ShowCase products got lost in the shuffle. SPSS, which is best known for its desktop statistical and predictive tools, offered more than 100 products, and the company's management did not effectively communicate how ShowCase's OS/400 (and Windows) online analytical processing engines fit into the mix, according to company officials. As a result, the SPSS side of the house continued to sell the SPSS line of products, while sales of the Strategy suite was left to a small, core team that came over from ShowCase. Incidentally, that small sales team was also required to sell SPSS tools, and revenue of the ShowCase products declined.

SPSS used the COMMON conference in Orlando last week to squelch any rumors that SPSS intends to kill its OS/400 product line, and to reinforce its commitment to ShowCase. "We are still committed to the [ShowCase] product line and the market," says Rod Reicks, an SPSS product manager who works at the ShowCase office in Rochester, Minnesota. "We're reaching our stride now." In fact, Reicks made the case that business is on an upswing. He also noted that Chicago-based SPSS is perfecting its pitch for SPSS tools on the front end and for ShowCase analytical software on the server.

As part of its ShowCase rebranding initiative, SPSS has restructured its sales force and has put ShowCase sales back in the hands of the 30 or so salespeople who remain from the sales force of more than 60 people that came over from ShowCase. Along with the name change (from the STRATEGY Suite to the ShowCase Suite), SPSS has "verticalized" the ShowCase offerings, so along with government- and life-sciences-specific offerings, SPSS has the ShowCase vertical, which is predominantly the version of Hyperion's Essbase OLAP engine that has been ported to OS/400.

Along with the rebranding, the company is delivering new capabilities with the Version 6.5 release of the ShowCase Suite. The ShowCase Suite includes three components: Essbase Version 6.5.1, Analyzer Version 6.2.1, and Enterprise Reporting Version 6.5.

The core enhancement with ShowCase Essbase 6.5.1 is the capability for users to analyze relational data as if it were in a multidimensional cube. The resulting technology, called hybrid OLAP (or HOLAP for short), allows companies to use their OS/400 server resources more effectively. (IBM, which licenses the OS/400 Essbase technology from SPSS, rolled out the same capability last November. See "From MOLAP to HOLAP: Big Blue Updates OS/400 BI Software" for more on the benefits of HOLAP.) The HOLAP functionality in ShowCase Essbase requires licensing of the Essbase Integration Server.

While ShowCase Essbase remains the core server component of the ShowCase business intelligence offering, SPSS offers two ways to interface with that software. Both Analyzer and Enterprise Reporting allow users to build reports, but they do it in different ways and serve different groups of users. For example, Analyzer is usually used by salespeople; whereas Enterprise Reporting is often used by the financial side of the house.

With Analyzer 6.2.1, the company is delivering the software as a completely browser-based offering, instead of giving the option of running the software in a Web browser or through Windows. The company says that the new Web architecture in Analyzer, which is also developed by Hyperion, will simplify administration and enable more people to use the product. This release of Analyzer also features new reporting, printing, and analysis capabilities.

Enterprise Reporting 6.5 was written in Java and is delivered through a Web browser. It features a new Report Designer that lets users customize their queries from a Web browser and specify the report to be outputted as HTML, PDF, or Excel documents. Users will also find it easier to distribute reports with the new release, which now allows reports to be sent as e-mail attachments. Previously, that capability was not built into the product. A new schedule manager should simplify sending reports to large groups of people, while the new linked reports capability uses HTML to let users to jump to other relevant areas of a report.