Intelligent Enterprise

Hyperion Solutions Corp. Tuesday will debut Hyperion System 9, a new release of the vendor's performance management system that Hyperion says will be the most comprehensive combination of business intelligence and financial management applications.

The system includes a new Web-based interface that acts as a portal to all of Hyperion's enterprise planning, financial and management reporting, and business analysis applications. The interactive workspace interface, which has built in task-flow management capabilities, provides a means of sharing information between those applications for business performance management tasks – monitoring key performance metrics of business processes and using the findings for strategic planning.

Hyperion 9, known until now as "Project Avalanche," also includes a re-engineered foundation that provides the applications with a workflow engine and meta data management capabilities, the latter based on meta data management technology Hyperion acquired when it bought Razza Solutions Inc. in January.

The new system can combine data from a number of back-end sources, including relational databases and Hyperion's own Essbase online analytical processing (OLAP) software. The product began shipping late last month.

Global Hyatt Corp. just completed a pilot Hyperion 9 project as the first step to rolling out the system to several thousand corporate executives and hotel managers to help them track a broad range of financial and operational performance metrics, says Gebhard Rainer, hotel finance and technology VP for Hyatt International Corp., a Global Hyatt subsidiary.

The Hyperion system will help the hotel company measure its performance against its corporate strategy, Rainer says. In addition to analyzing data from Hyatt's own operational systems, Hyperion will draw on data from customer surveys, competitive analysis reports, and other sources. "System 9 is really the layer that will lead to complete integration of the Hyperion applications underneath," he says.

Business intelligence software vendors have been racing to expand into the business performance management space by pairing BI with financial management applications. Cognos Inc., Hyperion's chief rival, did so when it acquired Adaytum Inc. in 2003 for $157 million, while Business Objects SA made a similar move earlier this year with its $100 million buyout of SRC Software Inc.