However, Diane Maluzhinsky, a financial specialist with General Dynamics Land Systems in Sterling Heights, Mich., applauded the move. Her company, which designs and builds land and amphibious combat systems for the military, has been using Hyperion's Essbase product for eight years, she said.

But because the organization also was a heavy user of Oracle's ERP applications, Maluzhinsky said she constantly had to justify the investment in Hyperion's OLAP tool over Oracle's. "Oracle has its own OLAP product, but it didn't stand a chance against Hyperion," she said. "It didn't have the strength Hyperion had."

In addition, while the organization uses Oracle's financial software to close its books, Oracle did not have a mechanism to consolidate those financial reports at a corporate level, she added. Therefore every month the company had to dump all the data from Oracle into Hyperion to be consolidated before sending to the corporate office, she said.

"The combination of the two will make them very powerful," she said.

Wayne Eckerson, director of research at the Data Warehousing Institute, questioned whether Hyperion customers will get significant benefits from the deal. "Hyperion was doing well, and it has some innovative products in the pipeline," he said. "Will Oracle leave Hyperion alone? I doubt it. Will Hyperion continue to innovate? I'm not sure."