World APL News
Press Release – Adaytum Software (9th November 98)
Adaytum Software Announces Industry’s First Financial Planning and Modelling Solution To Support Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services
The new version of Adaytum Planning will use the OLE DB for OLAP interface to integrate with Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services. It firmly positions Adaytum in the forefront of the rapidly growing financial management applications market providing users with new levels of speed, flexibility, and power. First release of the new product is scheduled for February 1999.
SQL Server OLAP Services and Adaytum Planning
“Adaytum Planning’s dynamic modelling flexibility and rich, top-down planning functionality are an ideal complement to Microsoft SQL Server’s OLAP Services,” said Sue Strother, chief marketing officer for Adaytum. “By tightly integrating Adaytum Planning with SQL Server OLAP Services, we will provide a high-performance, scalable solution for enterprise planning and budgeting.”
“We are pleased that Adaytum Software is announcing support for SQL Server OLAP Services to bring cost-effective scalability to enterprise customers,” said Andrew Hoover, Microsoft's group industry marketing manager – data warehousing. “The combination of SQL Server OLAP Services and Adaytum Planning’s sophisticated budgeting, planning, and analysis tools will provide a new class of financial planning and modelling applications for budgeting and planning managers.”
Press Release – APL2000 bought by SS&C (19th October 98)
SS&C Further Invests in PTS 2000 Announces Letter of Intent to Acquire Tool Business of APL2000 Inc.
SS&C Technologies, Inc. announced today it has signed a non-binding letter of intent to acquire the APL2000 tools business of Princeton, NJ-based APL2000 Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of LEX2000 Inc., of Atlanta, Georgia.
APL2000 is the creator of the programming language APL, which is used in SS&C's PTS 2000 system. As part of the proposed acquisition, Eric Baelen, President of APL2000 Inc., and recognized around the world as one of the leading experts on APL, will join SS&C.
“This is an important strategic acquisition for SS&C,” stated William C. Stone, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at SS&C. “Acquiring APL2000 and its high-powered development team will enable us to enhance PTS 2000. SS&C's ability to leverage the APL expertise and abilities of Eric Baelen and his strong team of developers represents further commitment to our Analytics Business Unit and, in particular, to world-class asset/liability management software.”
“This continues LEX2000's strategy of focusing our resources on our Financial Reporting Software. SS&C is an excellent software company which will provide the APL2000 team with the ability to grow,” stated Robert F. Reisner, Chief Executive Officer of LEX2000.
APL is a powerful, symbolic programming language. In fact, OLAP technology has its roots in the APL language. The latest version, APL+Win Version 3.0, released in May of this year, delivers a robust development toolset, including Inter/intranet support, a new ODBC driver, and support for Microsoft's COM (Component Object Model), making APL interoperable with other programming languages and applications. APL enjoys a worldwide following of application developers. These developers use APL to build a range of database and computational programs that serve a wide variety of industries, including financial services, and insurance.
“We are excited to join forces with SS&C,” stated Eric Baelen, President of APL2000, Inc. ֻWe have been impressed by SS&C's commitment to superior technology and their ability to rapidly bring product to market. We believe we will be able to add strategic value to SS&C's PTS 2000 product, and continue to advance the APL language.”
The proposed acquisition will allow SS&C to offer a full complement of consulting and technical services for APL users, including application development and enhancement, optimization, assistance in porting APL applications across platforms, and training.
The transaction is subject to the negotiation and execution of definitive documents, and the receipt of customary approvals. The Company expects the transaction to close by the end of November 1998.
Codework – Press Release (November 6th, 1998)
The Codework company is proud to announce the release of WinHELM version 1.1 for Win 3.x, Win 95 and Win NT. Earlier versions of HELM have been around for over ten years. (MS-DOS version is still supported.) WinHELM is a DSS-OLAP product for the Windows platform. Basically, it is a versatile and powerful handler of large multi-way tables (a.k.a. hypercubes).
Although this version is for the smaller machines, several million records can be loaded and then respond to queries within seconds. Performance is orders of magnitude better than with any record-and-field oriented database.
Manuals and evaluation version can be downloaded from
http://www.inrete.it/cdwk/eng/homee.html
The evaluation version entails all services, except database creation. After a (free) registration via Email, such module can also be enabled.
The product is well suited for
- fast prototyping, impromptu requests – students and teachers – developers interested in DSS-OLAP applications for single PCs and LANs
- business analysts that must deliver answers within minutes in unreliable or unfriendly environments (those who must “take the tool with them”)
- those who need a hands-on experience of DSS-OLAP issues with an investment of a day or two (as opposed to months of training, large UNIX machines and the assistance of numerous wizards)
- a natural growth path to more challenging processing, via open-ended user languages.
WinHELM is not a strong candidate for
- company-wide, network-centric Terabyte-range OLAPs
- a workbench for mixing and matching all sorts of last-minute software technology (WinHELM’s mission as a “survival kit” makes it very cautious in adopting new technology)
- custom GUI interface development (that is, WinHELM has its own GUI interface through which you do ANY processing – WinHELM offers only basic support for building your own GUI applications, as you would do with V.B.A. or Delphi, for example).
Send any comments to codework@inrete.it please.