OFA - the Future
Please see the Oracle web sites http://www.oracle.com and http://www.otn.com for the official story on OFA and the upgrade path. The following represents my understanding of the situation.
OFA is now available as Version 6.4 (11i). This is the last planned release.
Oracle Express has now been incorporated into the Oracle 9i relational database, and appears as the OLAP option. This performs as well as, if not better than, the standalone Express product, and provides many advantages in integration with relational databases and SQL. However, SNAPI did not make the leap, so snapi-based technology, which includes OFA, cannot be upgraded to 9i.
The successor to OFA, and OSA (Sales Analyser) as well, is currently known as Enterprise Planning and Budgeting (EPB). The first release is scheduled for September 2003. However, this release will be read-only, so it will not be able to replace most OFA systems. So it seems unlikely that a replacement for OFA will be available before 2004.
In the meantime, there are tools available to enable users to develop their own systems based on the 9i OLAP technology. The main one is JDeveloper in conjunction with BI Beans. JDeveloper is a java developer tool. Beans are modules of Java code that are ready for use by JDeveloper to generate systems. BI beans will allow you to develop a bespoke Business Intelligence application.
You can expect to see this web site offering skills in EPB, JDeveloper and BI Beans in the near future. If your requirement to explore these is NOW, why not talk to us to see how we can assist each other to explore these avenues.