Hyperion extends support for Vista

Business intelligence "gadgets" for Windows Vista promise to help users access rapid, real-time reports

Business Intelligence (BI) software vendor Hyperion extended its portfolio late last week with the launch of a major new suite designed to make it easier for end users to access BI reports.

The company said that Hyperion System 9 Smart Space provides a composite application environment that ensures BI reporting capabilities are "always on" and accessible to every user in the business through either Windows XP or Vista.

"Smart Space breaks up the monolithic BI apps that have dominated the market and allows customers to easily rebuild them in a way that suits the end user," said Tobin Gilman, senior director of product marketing at Hyperion. "This really is a significant release as it means users are finally getting the information they need when they need it."

In practice this means that as soon as users log on to Windows Vista, BI information and key performance indicators flow automatically from Hyperion's platform to gadgets - or "super-light, very specific apps", as Gilman describes them - that are feature on the desktop.

Users can then customise these gadgets and have the information presented in a way that suits them, such as through a pre-defined briefing book that presents all the data relevant to their role, or through a stock price-style ticker that keeps them up to date with the state of key corporate KPIs.

Collaboration and instant messaging (IM) functionality embedded within the gadgets also allows users to easily share BI information with colleagues and engage in collaborative decision making that can then be documented and recorded for auditing purposes.
Gilman added that Hyperion aims to make it easier still for firms to deploy the technology by working with third party software and consultancy partners who will develop industry and role specific gadgets so that firms no longer need to customise them.

Hyperion hopes the availability of BI reporting functionality on the desktop, as opposed to embedded within Office apps or presented through a separate BI dashboard, will help to improve BI adoption rates that stand at around 20 percent according to various reports.

"One in five people that need BI don’t have access to it and while every vendor has realised this is a problem they have tackled it by simply making BI easier to use for that 20 percent who are already using it," argued Gilman. " Smart Space aims to make it genuinely pervasive and easy to use for everybody."