The Open-Source companies Jedox GmbH and Tensegrity GmbH, the Chemnitz University of Technology and the Australian company De Bortoli Wines started a cooperation for the development of a Business Intelligence Add-In for OpenOffice.org. They now seek additional sponsors to start the project.
A combination of Spreadsheet-Software plus a capable server for Business Intelligence and OLAP becomes more and more popular. While Microsoft offers the combination of MS Office and Office PerformancePoint Server as a comprehensive BI solution, there is a sophisticated and free alternative: the Open Source based Palo Server. For Palo version 1.5 there already is a free Add-In available which helps convert Excel 200, XP, 2003 and 2007 into a server based solution for analysis and planning.
More and more companies are realizing the value of using Open Source software in the enterprise. Since Palo was launched around a year ago, this Open Source product has not only been embraced by a large number of individual users, but also various larger organizations, such as the German Chamber of Commerce (Deutscher Industrie- und Handelskammertag), ALTANA Pharma Germany and now also De Bortoli Wines, one of Australia’s larger privately owned companies.
De Bortoli Wines are now going a step further. After IT head Bill Robertson learned that German software producer Jedox is ready to develop an Add-In for the OpenOffice.org spreadsheet module Calc, De Bortoli opted to be the first company on the list of sponsors to support this project. De Bortoli makes wide use of Open Source software and have previously sponsored a small number of select Open Source projects. As strong believers in Open Standards, De Bortoli Wines standardization on the Open Document File format (ISO/IEC 26300) for Office Applications has been a strategic reason behind their adoption of OpenOffice.
The Palo Add-In for OpenCalc will be finalized as soon as a few more sponsors have committed to contribute to the new project. Further information about sponsoring options can be found under www.palo.net.