Panorama Updates Data Analysis Software For Google Apps

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The upgraded Panorama Analytics for Google Docs offers an improved user interface based on Adobe's Flash technology and support for a greater number of business and consumer users. The service is now available in the "featured list" of Google Docs Gadget List.

Most business intelligence products today are on-premise reporting and analysis tools. But as more applications go the software-as-a-service route, including Google's advertising-supported Google Apps, BI software vendors are trying to follow suite.

In March, Panorama debuted a pivot table solution for analyzing data in the Google Docs spreadsheet in much the same way information workers can use the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet as a front-end data analysis tool. Beyond the improved user interface, the new Panorama Analytics for Google Docs also offers more capability for analyzing large volumes of corporate data.

Customers can also use Panorama's hosted PowerApps online analytical processing (OLAP) engine, which the company debuted in June, to collect corporate data and upload it to Google Apps, said Oudi Antebi, Panorama vice president of marketing and strategy. The company has struck a deal with SDG Computing to offer that company's application for transferring data as part of the solution.

While users can manually upload and analyze data in Google Apps for free, Panorama charges a fee for using PowerApps to manage and refresh that data, Antebi said.

In coming months Panorama plans to add RSS support, new visualization capabilities, and support for Salesforce.com, SAP and Microsoft Dynamics applications to its solution for Google Apps, according to the company.

In the first quarter of 2009, the company also will add APIs to PowerApps that Antebi said ISVs can use to develop applications that run on the OLAP engine and tap into Panorama's cloud computing analysis capabilities.