Microsoft Passes on JOLAP Initiative

As reported by Dennis Callaghan, eWEEK, Microsoft Corp has declined to participate in the so-called JOLAP initiative, led by Hyperion Solutions Corp, IBM, Oracle Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc, deriding it as an "anti- Microsoft marketing effort." The JOLAP initiative calls for the development of a standard Java-based interface for creating, storing, accessing and managing data and metadata in OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) servers.

Hyperion, IBM, Oracle and Sun, as well as several other companies that support the standard, are hailing the agreement as a landmark cooperative effort to create a common, platform-independent way to access OLAP databases.

But Microsoft, at least for now, is shunning JOLAP in favor of its own OLE DB standard.

"(OLE DB) was developed with the consensus of dozens of third-party partners and is now broadly embraced by masses of developers," Microsoft said in a prepared statement. "Meanwhile, our competitors are just starting up this specification process -- we have at least a three-year lead over them."

"Microsoft is off doing its own product thing as usual," complained Jagdish Mirani, senior director of marketing for data warehousing at Oracle. "It's a disservice to the marketplace."

Microsoft 'leaving money at the table'? JOLAP is designed to be the OLAP counterpart to the JDBC API for data managed by relational databases. In theory, a common API means database and business intelligence software vendors won't have to develop their own APIs, leaving them free to concentrate their development efforts elsewhere. Meanwhile, customers would have more choice in applications without having to worry about compatibility issues if everyone is developing to the same API.

'Microsoft is trying to raise the bar higher. They're saying the (OLAP standards) debate is done and we're moving on to the next level.' -- Mark Smith, Full Circle Strategies

"More and more companies are deploying analytic applications, and OLAP is the enabling technology for analytics," said Tobin Gilman, director of product strategy at Hyperion, which first proposed the JOLAP initiative. "This brings OLAP into the mainstream Java developer community. It will make it easier for organizations to deploy applications that depend on OLAP technologies."

"This is part of the natural growth of Java, it's grown to be used for heavy-duty things like OLAP," added Jeff Jones, senior program manager for data management systems at IBM. "It makes a great deal of sense to have a standardized API. A large community of developers is interested in this, and by definition they won't be talking to Microsoft now. Microsoft is leaving money at the table."

MS: XML is the future Microsoft, of course, sees things differently. In its statement, it described the JOLAP initiative as "misguided" since it is language-dependent.

"We think that the future is about moving towards XML and SOAP as a strategic, language-independent and platform-independent way to address this," the Microsoft statement continued. "And for the past nine months, we've been working to develop this in the next generation of OLE DB for OLAP. We think this is the way that people want to develop their .NET applications."

"Microsoft is trying to raise the bar higher," said Mark Smith, industry analyst and president of Full Circle Strategies in Truckee, Calif. "They're saying the (OLAP standards) debate is done and we're moving on to the next level."

Smith said it will be at least a year before anyone will see JOLAP-based applications, and he doesn't expect to see Microsoft take JOLAP seriously until then, if ever. The proposed interface still has to be hashed out through the Java Community Process program, the process for developing Java technology specifications, reference implementations and compatibility test suites.

Been there, done that "JOLAP would have to get quite a bit of push before Microsoft would even consider it," said Smith. "They're putting the pressure back on everyone else to deliver. It's great that these companies have all teamed up, but we haven't seen any product releases or third-party commitment yet. And the question is, when will that come?"

Microsoft isn't holding its breath. The company said in its statement that it was premature to speculate on how well JOLAP would be received, but it isn't encouraged by history.

"Hyperion, Sun, IBM and Oracle have tried this before and failed with their OLAP Council efforts," says the statement. "For many reasons, their efforts have failed, but mainly they lacked customer deployments."

"That's the big 'if,'" said Smith. "The OLAP Council tried to do this four years ago and didn't get anywhere. So Microsoft plowed through and created its own OLAP interface."

"As long as we stay market-focused, it will succeed," said Oracle's Mirani. "Because the market wants an alternative to Microsoft."