InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

Brio One, which runs on Windows NT and several Unix platforms, includes a variety of components, all integrated so users can leverage them against one another. For instance, information generated by Brio.Enterprise--a suite of tools for query, analysis, and online analytical processing--can be published and maintained in Brio.Portal, an enterprise portal system.

Brio One also includes Brio.Report, a suite of enterprise reporting software from Sqribe that includes tools to build and view reports, integration software to add features to the reports, and server software to extract, transform, and distribute data.

For Colorado Compensation Insurance, which uses the enterprise reporting tools and OLAP software from both Brio and Sqribe, the integrated suite will give it the best of both technologies. Executives at the Denver insurer can get paper reports using Brio.Report, and when they want to know more, an IT administrator can quickly produce an OLAP report using Brio.Enterprise. "Executives can slice and dice the data and see different views of it," says Matthew Bates, the insurer's decision-support service manager.

Analysts say Brio addresses customer needs by being a one-stop shop. "People don't want to have to buy different tools from different vendors for each of their users' needs," says Wayne Eckerson, an analyst with the Patricia Seybold Group consulting firm.

Brio also introduced a new version of Brio.Portal. Expected to ship early in the fourth quarter, Brio.Portal 6.0 starts at about $15,000 for a small installation running on NT.