ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

GOLDEN MEANS: DESPERADOES AND MANAGERS
by Inderpal Bhandari, executive editor at large

Inderpal Bhandari is widely recognized as a leading researcher in data mining and computer science. He is one of the few experts who have successfully demonstrated how the emerging technology of data mining can be translated into useful applications that offer a competitive advantage. Recently, he formed Virtual Gold, Inc. to implement his technical vision. Virtual Gold also offers a consulting service to help clients differentiate themselves from their competitors via the use of data mining technology.

From 1990-1997, Dr. Bhandari was a member of the research staff at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, where he received several awards for his pioneering work in data mining and in software engineering. He was the creator and project director of IBM's Advanced Scout, a data mining program used extensively by coaches of the National Basketball Association to devise new strategies based on the automatic identification of hidden patterns in game data and video.

He was educated at Carnegie Mellon University (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering, 1990), the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (M.S.) and the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India (B.Engg). He has published extensively in leading computer-related journals and conferences and has deployed several cutting-edge technological solutions to business problems.

Dr. Bhandari comments: "For the last eight years or so, I have seen data mining described variously as an emerging area or a leading-edge activity. A recent report based on a survey conducted by Price Waterhouse and the Conference Board talks about the slow uptake of data mining tools. Of particular interest was a comment that it seemed too much to ask organizations to address data mining in the initial phases of a data warehousing project. I guess the labels emerging and leading-edge are here to stay."

REPORT ON THE ORLANDO DATA WAREHOUSE WORLD
by Aaron Zornes, META Group

Aaron Zornes, strategic chairman of the recent DCI Data Warehouse Conference and Exposition in Phoenix, Arizona and executive vice president and service director for Application Delivery Strategies at META Group, offers a point-by-point review of the convo plus a detailed assessment of the state of the industry.

Zornes writes: "The audience reflected the diverse nature of applications targeted for data warehouse-style solutions. Forty percent of attendees were executive or business management and 50%+ IT professionals (consistent with DW Worlds held 2H97) 75% are in corporate IT groups; 25% in lines-of-business IT group. 125+ attendees completed the on-line survey conducted by Market Perspectives Inc. on behalf of META Group and First Albany Corp."

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF DATA MINING?
by John K. Thompson, Senior Director of Marketing, Magnify

Founded in 1991, Magnify, Inc. provides innovative data mining solutions to maximize the intrinsic value of the rapidly expanding data resources of Global 2000 companies. Based in Chicago, Magnify's mission is to continue to produce award-winning software and complete applications that will discover, explain, and predict rare and critical patterns in databases up to and including multiple terabytes.

Magnify maintains partnerships with Tandem Computers Inc., Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNSW), Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL), Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HWP) and Informix Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: IFMX). Magnify, Inc. and Magnify Research, Inc., which develops products and integrates systems for the federal government, are subsidiaries of Magnify Holdings Corporation.

For more information access Magnify's Web site at http://www.magnify.com, or send e-mail to info@magnify.com

Thompson observes: "I don't amaze easily. Penn and Teller amuse me, and I can appreciate the run-up in Apple stock. But am I amazed by either? No. What does amaze me, however, is how many people simply don't get what should be the clearly obvious premise behind data mining."

ACTION ITEMS

Oracle and Information Discovery Expand Data Mining Partnership Expand Data Mining Partnership
Oracle Corporation and Information Discovery, Inc. have announced an expansion of their partnership to deliver joint data mining products and services within Oracle's Warehouse Technology Initiative. As part of this cooperation, enhancements will be made to the SQL engine in ORACLE8.1 and future releases to better support Information Discovery's software.

NCR Announces New Data Warehousing Solutions for Telecommunications Industry
NCR Corporation has announced the release of ChurnSENTRY and GrowthADVISOR, two data warehousing solutions that will help telecommunications companies increase customer retention, improve profitability and stimulate revenue growth by identifying customers that are most likely to change to a new service provider or to buy a product or service.

SPSS Ships AnswerTree for Discovering Segments, Profiles and Hidden Patterns in Data
Researchers and business people have a powerful new tool to quickly and easily identify groups and segments in their data. Fueled by recent, major initiatives in data mining, AnswerTree, developed by SPSS Inc., enables users to find segments, build profiles, predict outcomes and discover patterns in data. Automatically producing an intuitive tree diagram, this multi-method classification tool provides a visual snapshot of patterns and segments.

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