We have some exciting developments to announce in regards to our free-of-charge Open-Source OLAP Product Palo for Excel. We decided to include an ODBO driver (MDX) in the free download of Palo for Excel . The new ODBO connectivity allows to access Palo OLAP cubes via Excel Pivot Tables in Excel. It will be another 2 weeks from now and then everybody can do advanced OLAP-based Pivot Table queries in Excel without having to buy expensive licenses for Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services.
While Pivot Tables in Excel are read-only Palo users will have the option to writeback values from Excel directly to the OLAP cubes. This is done using the Palo Excel Add-In which is also included in the free download of Palo for Excel. By adding the writeback ability to OLAP cubes, Palo becomes an interesting choice for a server- and Excel based planning application in the mid-market space. With Microsoft recently announcing the end of PerformancePoint Planning this is a huge opportunity for people looking for an inexpensive but powerful centralized planning application under the familiar Excel user interface.
The following screenshot shows a Palo cube in an Excel 2007 Pivot Table (it works in Excel 2003 as well). You can also see the ribbon menu bars of the Palo Excel Add-In which allows to write back values, change the dimensions and the cube structures of the Palo cubes and even includes access to a powerful data import wizard to fill Palo cubes with external data.
One final note that I would like to mention. If we talk about free download for Palo for Excel this is not only the Palo Excel Client. Actually you can download a complete client-server installation for free with as many servers and as many clients installations as you need.
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