In-Depth

Briefs: News from Brio, Sarbanes-Oxley solutions from Oracle, Plumtree, and HandySoft

Brio revamps BI suite, Oracle has Sarbanes-Oxley under control, Plumtree and HandySoft partnership offers Sarbanes-Oxley Accelerator

• By Stephen Swoyer
• 06/04/2003

Brio Software Inc. announced version 8.1 of Brio Performance Suite, an upgrade to its business intelligence (BI) toolset that boasts improved performance and new support for three major Unix operating environments.

The revamped version of Brio’s flagship BI suite includes Reports iServer (facilitates browser-based report management), Intelligence iServer (provides browser-based query and analysis), Insight Server (supports browser-based off-line query and analysis), SQR (an engine for generating reports and processing data), Knowledge Server (a search engine for finding and retrieving information), and Developer Tools (a toolset for the development of browser-based query, analysis, and reporting tools).

Brio Performance Suite 8.1 now supports AIX from IBM Corp., HP-UX from Hewlett-Packard Co., and Solaris from Sun Microsystems Inc. Brio says that it will also deliver localized Windows versions of the revamped suite in nine languages.

Brio Performance Suite 8.1 supports three popular Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) application servers: Sun’s Sun ONE Application Server, IBM’s WebSphere (version 4.0.3 or higher), and BEA Systems Inc.’s WebLogic (version 6.x SP3 or higher).

The revamped suite also supports the open source Apache Web server (version 1.3 or higher) with JRUN.

Available immediately for Windows and Solaris, the product's AIX support will follow this month; HP-UX support is expected later this summer.

See http://www.brio.com for more details.

Oracle Has Sarbanes-Oxley Under Control

Oracle Corp. announced Oracle Internal Controls Manager, a component of its Oracle E-Business Suite designed to facilitate compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

Sarbanes-Oxley requires that executives and auditors of public companies document and certify the effectiveness of internal controls and procedures related to financial reporting.

Oracle Internal Controls Manager helps companies document and test internal controls and monitor ongoing compliance.

The product provides companies with the ability to create and document internal processes by leveraging Oracle Workflow, a process-modeling tool that is included in the Oracle E-Business Suite. Companies can use Oracle Internal Controls Manager to design their business processes and store them in a centralized repository. From there, companies can monitor business processes to ensure that they are performed in compliance with the manner in which they were specified. When the system detects a deviation from the specified process, it automatically sends an alert to the appropriate person.

To help companies better understand and track risks, Oracle Internal Controls Manager enables a company to maintain a library of risks that can be associated with each business process within an organization. Once potential risks are identified, Oracle Internal Controls Manager allows a company to design controls to help mitigate those risks.

Oracle says that it has consulted with audit firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to ensure that Oracle Internal Controls can leverage that firm's risk assurance services and content. As a result, PricewaterhouseCoopers’ risk libraries can be used as the basis for a company's risk assurance activities.

In this regard, Oracle Internal Controls Manager gives auditors a framework within which to attest to the effectiveness of internal controls.

See http://www.oracle.com for more information.

Plumtree and HandySoft Partner for Sarbanes-Oxley

HandySoft Corp. and Plumtree Software announced the Sarbanes-Oxley Accelerator, a joint solution that helps publicly traded companies comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

The new offering combines business process management software from HandySoft (BizFlow) with the collaboration, search, and personalization features of Plumtree’s Enterprise Web Suite.

The result, both companies say, is that each member of an organization’s extended accounting team gets a personalized view of its compliance process based on her responsibilities. For example, account teams can collect and document financial evidence, submit account information into a defined workflow through electronic forms, collaborate on documentation, and receive assigned tasks. At the same time, internal and external auditors can monitor compliance and drill down into supporting evidence. They can also review reports, policies, and procedures to identify any gaps with regulation.

Similarly, controllers can manage the planning, testing, and reviewing of internal controls. In addition, they can identify and resolve issues in process or documentation, review and approve documentation, and assign tasks.

Finally, executives, boards of directors and audit committees can access the information needed to attest to the effectiveness of internal financial controls.

Available this month, the Sarbanes-Oxley Accelerator will be offered as a stand-alone solution or as an add-on to existing HandySoft or Plumtree products. See http://www.handysoft.com or http://www.plumtree.com for more information.