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Java tool browses intranets

Net start-up InterNetivity introduces a Java data analysis tool that delivers data over a corporate intranet to Web browsers.

Mike Ricciuti Staff writer, CNET News
Mike Ricciuti joined CNET in 1996. He is now CNET News' Boston-based executive editor and east coast bureau chief, serving as department editor for business technology and software covered by CNET News, Reviews, and Download.com. E-mail Mike.
Mike Ricciuti
2 min read
Net start-up InterNetivity has introduced a Java data analysis tool for business users that delivers data over a corporate intranet to Web browsers.

DbProbe 3.0 is intended to allow so-called decision support tools to be widely disseminated to sales staff and other mobile users without the need for specialized server software. The company said it uses a "thin server" design that allows the tool to be run on thousands of simultaneous clients with no increase in load on supported databases or Web servers.

The tool embeds a data cube, for analyzing business information, into a standard HTML Web page. The cube also can be delivered via push technology, such as Marimba's Castanet. The client software is roughly 120 kilobytes in size, so download times are short.

Release 3.0 of the tool adds new features, such as the ability to sort categories, add new categories, and use advanced mathematical functions as well as support for right mouse clicks and online help, the company said.

The tool uses ODBC (Open Database Connectivity), a data access interface, to connect to corporate databases and to OLAP (online analytical processing) servers, such as Arbor Software's Essbase.

DbProbe includes a wizard that steps users through the client setup process to define a profile that specifies how source data will be transformed into a multidimensional cube, called a PageCube. End users can then access the PageCube once it is published to a Web server.

The tool is priced at $12,500 per Web server, and at $100 per user.