Major Enhancements in Release 9.3 Help Organizations Align Business Processes with Objectives and Improve Consistency of Enterprise Data

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Hyperion (Nasdaq Global Select: HYSL), the global leader in Business Performance Management (BPM) software, today distanced itself further from its BPM competitors with the introduction of powerful new capabilities in Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3.

With new functionality in financial management applications, data management services, and business intelligence (BI) modules of Hyperion System 9, the new release gives organizations more tools for improving business performance, along with expanded options for integrating diverse enterprise systems.

The new release reflects Hyperion’s continued commitment to extend Hyperion System 9 functionality into areas where enterprises need it most. Launched a year ago, Hyperion System 9 was the industry’s first product to integrate financial management applications and a BI platform in a single system built on a common set of foundation services and accessed via the unified Business Performance Management Workspace. In May, Hyperion added a new Hyperion System 9 application enabling financial data quality management.

Gaining Control of Applications, Assets and Business Plans

Release 9.3 incorporates new capabilities that further elevate Hyperion customers’ ability to design and manage financial applications, control capital assets, and flexibly manage business plans.

• BPM Architect is the industry’s first business process modeling environment that helps enterprises align planning scenarios, financial and operational plans, and financial consolidation processes. BPM Architect gives users an aerial view from which they can design, deploy, manage, and synchronize financial management and planning processes. The visual modeling environment lets users define process assumptions and properties, map the flow of data and metadata, and share common components between applications, scenarios, and financial activities.
• A new Hyperion System 9 Capital Expense Planning module within Release 9.3’s integrated business planning framework provides the industry’s only packaged and extensible solution for planning the acquisition, lifecycle management, and retirement of capital assets. The new module allows financial and operational managers to increase the accuracy of their forecasts by integrating capital improvements into their rolling forecasts and annual plans. Now managers can run depreciation and amortization calculations, develop action plans for existing assets, plan for driver-based or user-defined asset-related expenses, and generate asset reports. Hyperion System 9 users can also account for assets throughout their entire lifecycle, from pre-acquisition planning through to retirements, transfers and improvements. (See related announcement.)

Improving Reliability of Enterprise Data

With Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3, Hyperion is also augmenting its existing data management services with a new module for data integration. Building on Hyperion’s existing family of data management services, which include master data management and financial data quality solutions, the new Hyperion System 9 Data Integration Management module provides a robust and proven solution for integrating Hyperion applications with ERP, CRM, and other transactional systems. Collectively, Hyperion’s data management services complement the enterprise information management strategy of any organization with solutions that provide the flexibility and governance that business users need, while preserving IT control over the stability and integrity of mission critical information systems. Hyperion System 9 Data Management Services address all forms of performance management information, including financial, operational and master data.

And with the flexible and open data integration architecture built into Hyperion System 9, customers have the unique option to either rely on the new module from Hyperion or use data integration tools from other vendors.

“Today's announcement suggests that Hyperion is paying close attention to two of the most important success factors of BPM,” said Kathleen Wilhide, research director for compliance and business performance management applications at IDC. “First, Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3’s Data Management Services module helps ensure that the integrity of the data itself is sound – a key first step toward improving the veracity of reporting. Second, the new BPM Architect helps align and integrate various financial planning and reporting processes to ensure they are working together toward common objectives, another issue that derails many performance management projects.”

“Your reports are only as good as the data contained in them,” said Henry van der Linden, support manager, Hyperion Competence Centre, De Lage Landen International B.V. “Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3 will help us improve the integrity of our report data, and offers us a powerful platform for integrating data from all of our ERP systems. For us, Release 9.3 delivers two important benefits: it will save us many hours each month, and it will give us greater confidence in the quality of our reports.”

Building on Hyperion’s Vision for BI Standardization

Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3 builds on Hyperion’s vision for BI standardization with new capabilities that support two BI characteristics crucial to an efficient enterprise: pervasive information delivery, and open and certified integration with existing platforms.

With Release 9.3, enterprises benefit from wider access to information thanks to two new features:

• The innovative Microsoft Office integration, first introduced in Hyperion System 9 SmartView for Office, is enhanced in Release 9.3. The new release delivers powerful new capabilities that improve productivity and provide familiar access to novice users by linking views of business intelligence between Office applications such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel. For instance, a user could create a spreadsheet in Excel and manage it as a Hyperion System 9 report; if the document is shared with another user via any Office application, all updates to the data consequently update the original data set.
• Release 9.3 also supports Google OneBox for Enterprise, a feature of the Google Search Appliance. Unlike solutions from other BI vendors, Release 9.3 provides customers with access not only to BI-related dashboards, reports, and metrics, but also to information associated with planning and financial management processes. Hyperion System 9 support for this feature was announced last month.

To enable interoperability with increasingly complex IT environments, Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3 advances Hyperion’s efforts to ensure open and certified integration with leading enterprise platforms, portals and databases:

• Release 9.3 moves Hyperion’s integration with SQL Server 2005 to the next level by enabling users to access information stored in MS SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services directly from Hyperion System 9 BI+.
• Release 9.3 also provides direct integration with IBM Websphere portal. Now users can view and interact with Hyperion System 9 BI+ content without ever leaving their Websphere portal environment. Users also have the option to launch the Hyperion System 9 Workspace directly from their corporate portal.
• SAP Netweaver customers who deploy Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3 also benefit from new integration with the Netweaver portal environment. From the Netweaver portal interface, users can launch the Hyperion System 9 Business Performance Workspace and interact with Hyperion System 9 BI+ content.

“A common workspace is a powerful and useful concept, and one Telenor fully supports,” said Hans Jørgen Krogstie, CPM system manager of Telenor ASA, a leading provider of telecommunications services and one of the largest mobile operators worldwide. “We also see great value in further integrating Hyperion’s BI tools with its BPM products, and we are eager to try out Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3 as soon as it is available.”

Hyperion System 9 Release 9.3 is planned for release in the next calendar quarter. The timing of any product release, including any features or functionality, is subject to change at Hyperion’s discretion.

About Hyperion

Hyperion Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq Global Select: HYSL) is the global leader in Business Performance Management software. More than 12,000 customers in 90 countries rely on Hyperion both for insight into current business performance and to drive performance improvement. With Hyperion software, businesses collect, analyze and share data across the organization, linking strategies to plans and monitoring execution against goals. Hyperion integrates financial management applications with a business intelligence platform into a single management system for the global enterprise. For more information, visit www.hyperion.com.