Sun Microsystems-Greenplum Data Warehouse Appliance
They're not the first to come up with an appliance-based data-warehouse system (DATAllegro and Netezza, among others, did it first), but Sun Microsystems and Greenplum have validated the concept of standalone hardware-software packages for BI and analytics. The appliance combines Sun's new "Thumper" Sun Fire X4500 data server with Greenplum's massively parallel distribution of the open-source PostgreSQL, Bizgres MPP database. It's said to be capable of analyzing 1 TB in 60 seconds and scaling to hundreds of terabytes of usable database capacity. The hardware consumes only 90 watts per TB, and rack-based systems (in 10 TB, 40 TB and 100 TB configurations) will start at less than $20,000 per usable TB. http://www.greenplum.com/products/sun_Appliance.php

Information Builders WebFocus
Information Builders (IBI) has released Resource Analyzer, a tool designed to give organizations a handle on IBI WebFocus BI system usage so they can ensure acceptable response times. The Analyzer monitors resource consumption so admins can spot inefficiencies and eliminate bottlenecks. More than 80 reports and graphs detail data utilization and key performance measures. http://www.informationbuilders.com/products/webfocus/

Pentaho BI
As testament to the allure of all things open source, the Pentaho BI suite, which is based on the Mondrian open-source OLAP project, reportedly has been downloaded to the tune of more than half a million copies. The suite, which provides reporting, analytics, dashboards and data integration, has just been enhanced with a Spreadsheet Services feature that lets business users access OLAP data using Microsoft Excel PivotTables. The add-on costs $90 per named user. http://www.pentaho.org/

Movaris OneClose Account Reconciliation
Recent SEC filings show that reconciliation errors are a leading cause of "material weaknesses" and financial restatements. Movaris' new application is designed to help eliminate such errors. Offered as part of the vendor's OneClose financial-close, SOX-compliance and financial-reporting software, Account Reconciliation is said to reduce reconciliation labor costs by 40 percent while increasing the accuracy of financial results. Key features include a Reconciliation and Variance Console that tracks and summarizes analyses and an Unlocated Differences Manager that spots hidden, high-risk variances and material breakdowns. http://www.movaris.com/product/index.html

ESRI ArcWeb Services
Geographic information systems vendor ESRI has signed an agreement to provide MetaCarta GeoTagger as a component of its on-demand, Web-based ArcWeb Services. ArcWeb Services users will be able to geo-reference data found in unstructured documents, such as articles, field service documents, internal reports and Web pages. The combination should make it possible to discover, visualize and act on location-based information. http://www.esri.com/software/arcwebservices/index.html

EMC Documentum Rights and Records Management
In the wake of its acquisition of Authentica earlier this year, EMC has released EMC Documentum Information Rights Management (IRM) Services and EMC Documentum Records Manager 5.3, complimentary content-management capabilities on one platform. The combo not only secures and tracks records within corporate repositories, it also controls and even disposes of copies of such records even if they're outside the corporate firewall (harnessing Authentica's rights-management technology). http://www.emc.com