Panopticon Preps iPad Analytics

Swedish data visualization software provider Panopticon is preparing to release a new component for its Panopticon EX visual data analysis platform that will leverage the HTML5 programming language, which will enable users to access the software’s interactive data analysis and visualization tools via tablet devices such as the Apple iPad.

Currently the EX platform comprises two parts: a server component which allows for enterprise-wide deployment of visual analysis workbooks within a firm’s internal network; and a number of client interfaces that access these server components, including the desktop-based EX Designer that allows users to design and modify dashboards, and a Java applet client that enables users to access dashboards via the web.

However, as tablet devices such as the Apple iPad do not support Java, Panopticon has decided to develop a HTML5 version of the platform, and plans to release it in the second quarter of this year, says Peter Simpson, senior vice president of research and development at the vendor.

“The HTML5 approach is more limiting than Java because Java is a multi-threaded language, whereas HTML5 is running Javascript on a web browser. But the primary advantage of HTML5 is that it can go to places that do not support Java, such as tablets,” Simpson says, specifically referring to the iPad, which has a dominant market share.

The HTML5 version of the platform will contain all the same filtering and analysis capabilities available in the current Java and Windows software displays, including tree navigation and heatmaps, though how closely the HTML5 version will resemble the exact look of the other interfaces will be determined in testing, Simpson says.

Panopticon developed the HTML5 component in response to client demand for the ability to view displays and dashboards interactively on mobile devices, to enable traders to perform end-of-day and historical analysis rather than for visualizing market movements in real time. “Typically in the real-time monitoring scenario, we’re sitting on traders’ desktops, and a trader isn’t going to leave to go and look at an iPad,” Simpson says. Instead, the tablet version would be useful for traders to perform analysis after market close, or in instances where real-time analysis is not such a significant issue—for example, for fund reporting or performance, risk and attribution analysis by buy-side firms.

The platform’s analytics will continue to run against data stored on customers’ servers. “All of our customers tend to be very paranoid about security. They are displaying their own data or their customer’s data, and they don’t want it going off their site to someone else’s,” he adds, which is why Panopticon chose to build the new version using HTML5 instead of developing a native application that stores data on external servers or on the device itself.