Panorama Software has upgraded its suite of business intelligence applications, introducing hybrid on-premise and software as a service capabilities.

The latest version of NovaView 5.5 released last week enables customers to retain their data warehouse in-house while combining the data with Web-based public data sources. The capability based on Web 2.0 technology also offers collaboration functionality between users inside and outside the firewall.

The Web 2.0-type capabilities include the ability to save and share interactive reports through a hosted Web server and tight integration with Google Apps, which are the search engine's SaaS answer to Microsoft Office. Google Apps include Web mail, calendaring, word processing, spreadsheets and wiki-building services.

In addition the NovaView upgrade has mash-up tools for combining corporate data with public data, new RSS functionality to subscribe to data feeds, and integration tools for connecting to SaaS applications such as Salesforce.com.

Other enhancements in the upgrade include a Flash-based dashboard and the use of multidimensional expression (MDX) to support other BI platforms, such as SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence and Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services.

Panorama uses MDX to query data hosted with Panorama, which also provides tools for uploading and managing data. MDX is a query language for OLAP databases, much like SQL is a query language for relational databases. MDX is also a calculation language, with syntax similar to spreadsheet formulas.

Panorama in June launched a Web-based hosted online analytical processing platform. PowerApps, which is expected to be broadly available by the end of the year, offers application programming interfaces to create scorecards, dashboards, and reports from within Google Apps.

Panorama is one of the fastest growing companies in the BI market. In 1996, Panorama sold its OLAP technology to Microsoft, which made it the foundation of the BI platform of SQL Server, now called SQL Server Analysis. Panorama also sold MDX to Microsoft.

Panorama now focuses on creating front-end applications that run on the BI layer of other major vendors beyond Microsoft, such as SAP, IBM and Oracle. Microsoft competes with Panorama through its 2006 ProClarity acquisition.

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