Data mining, data warehousing, decision support and knowledge discovery
make up the universe of D S * ( dsstar ), the only executive business newsletter
supporting strategic employment of these technologies.
The On-Line Executive Journal for Data-Intensive Decision Support
*** January 5, 1999: Vol. 3, No. 1 ***
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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IN THIS ISSUE:
INDERPAL BHANDARI ON THE Y2K PROBLEM
DECISION SUPPORT MIDDLEWARE GARNERS ACCOLADES AT ORBIXAWARDS
NEW MULTIDIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS DATABASE FOR MVS
A SPECIAL OFFER TO DS* READERS
HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING -- CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIETY
Finally, there's a full color book written in layman's terms
that explains and shows what supercomputing and high performance
computing are and how they contribute to our daily lives.
ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY
THE Y2K PROBLEM - TAKING A TURN FOR THE BIZARRE
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.
TWO SERVERS ARE BETTER THAN ONE
More businesses than ever are thinking about clustering computers together
to ensure that applications stay up and running at all times or that large
applications can run faster.
HARMONY SOFTWARE DRAMATICALLY REDUCES COST AND TIME
OF DATA MART AND ANALYTICAL APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
Harmony Software, a new venture pioneering the Business Performance
Management (BPM) software market, has introduced a suite of data models
that dramatically reduce the time and cost of developing integrated data
marts and analytical applications.
DECISION SUPPORT MIDDLEWARE APPLICATION WINS IONA
TECHNOLOGIES' ANNUAL ORBIXAWARDS
IONA Technologies has announced the recipient of this year's OrbixAwards
competition, Kaushal Chari, assistant professor of Information Systems and
Decision Sciences at the University of Florida. Using IONA's Orbix, Chari
developed an application that supports distributed decision making over the
intranet.
INFORMATION BUILDERS NOW SHIPPING FOCUS FUSION, A HIGH
PERFORMANCE, MULTI-DIMENSIONAL DATABASE FOR MVS
Information Builders, a global leader in data warehousing, data integration
and decision support, is now shipping its Focus Fusion database for MVS.
Fusion is the first high-performance multi-dimensional analysis database that
runs on the MVS platform.
ACTION ITEMS
SPSS Ships AnswerTree 2.0 Desktop Data Mining Software; Features
Data Access and Performance Improvements and Web Distribution
Capabilities
What if you could pinpoint the one thing that motivates your customers to
buy, or which people are most likely to default on loans? AnswerTree 2.0,
from SPSS Inc., gives users the power to mine this kind of information from
their data.
CheckFree Announces Data Warehousing Agreement with
Business Technology Alliance; CheckFree APL and APL WRAP
Clients Will Have Ability to Store, Integrate and Present
Mission-Critical Data
CheckFree has announced an agreement with Boston-based Business
Technology Alliance (BTA) to provide CheckFree APL and APL WRAP clients
with access to BTA's data warehousing service via automated data transfer.
SAS Institute and HP Announce Global Initiative
SAS Institute Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Company have announced a global
initiative designed to leverage the new HP 9000 V2500 Enterprise Server
in joint data-warehouse solution offerings for customer-relationship
management (CRM)
Analysts International Bolsters Data Warehousing
Practice With Acquistion of Enterprise Solutions, Inc
Analysts International Corporation has announced the acquisition of the
information technology consulting and services business of Minneapolis-based
Enterprise Solutions Incorporated (ESI). ESI's consulting and services
practice, which specializes in data warehouse and decision support solutions,
will be folded into Analysts International's Minneapolis branch data
warehousing practice.
HNC Insurance Solutions Introduces Spyder Software for
Healthcare Fraud & Abuse Containment
HNC Insurance Solutions has announced the introduction of Spyder, a
predictive software solution to combat healthcare fraud and abuse.
Liverpool Victoria Matches Tradition With Technology To
Ensure Even "Friendlier" Customer Relations
Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society has matched the longest running
traditions with the latest technology by investing in pioneering new
Customer Relationship Management software at its Bournemouth headquarters.
It's a Built-In or Bolt-On Goldmine for Knowledge Discovery
Applications" - Announcing K.wiz, Data Mining Technology
for ISVs Building Analytical Applications
K.wiz is entirely written in Java and is already compatible with today's
release of the Java 1.2 platform. It leverages investments in Web, data
warehousing and OLAP systems by revealing the underlying patterns in data
and presenting them in a clear, graphical format.
ISL Gets DTI SMART Award for Clementine Server Development
Integral Solutions Limited (ISL) has received a SMART award from the DTI
to help fund the development of CHESS, a middleware component to boost the
performance of the Clementine Data Mining System against extremely large
databases.
Pilot Software Introduces "What If" Analysis Application;
Fully Integrated with Pilot's PDSS OLAP Solution
Pilot Software, a leading provider of Web-based and client/server online
analytical processing (OLAP) business intelligence solutions, has
introduced What If Analysis, a new application that enables improved
decision making through powerful, but easy business simulations.
Amdocs Churn Management System Counters
Telecommunications Churn
Amdocs, a leading international provider of customer care and billing
solutions for the telecommunications industry, has announced the
availability of its Churn Management system. This system utilizes renowned
Amdocs data mining applications, which recently won recognition in the
data mining competition at the International Conference on Knowledge
Discovery and Data Mining, KDD-98.
Ralph Kimball Associates and Sagent Technology Announce
Open Enrollment for Kimball University '99
Sagent Technology, Inc., provider of a leading turnkey solution for
bringing data marts to the Web, and Ralph Kimball Associates, have announced
open enrollment for Kimball University '99. This year-long series of 14 data
warehousing classes provides IT personnel with the in-depth coverage they need
for designing and building data marts and data warehouses.
Carleton Announces "Pure-Dimension" for High Performance
OLAP Database Creation, Speeds Delivery of Customer Data
for OLAP Analysis
Carleton has announced the availability of Pure-Dimension, a
high-performance data transformation solution that enables organizations
to rapidly and easily build and maintain large-scale data marts or data
warehouses for OLAP analysis.
Red Brick Teams With ProLink Services for Telecommunications
Data Warehousing Solutions
Red Brick Systems, Inc. has announced a strategic partnership with
ProLink Services to deliver telecommunications data warehousing
solutions based on Red Brick's high-performance data warehousing products.
Cognos Buys Relational Matters
Cognos is buying itself a $10 million Christmas gift. Ottawa, Canada-based
Cognos said it is buying Relational Matters, a Britain-based maker of tools
for extracting and loading huge amounts of data into data marts.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
The consultants are spinning their doomsday scenarios, some
say to drum up business and similarly, numerous others are downplaying the
effects, perhaps to limit expenditure on testing.
- Inderpal Bhandari, executive editor at large
CONFERENCES & SEMINARS 01.05.99
D S * INFORMATION
D S * welcomes bylined comments for publication.
All comments regarding editorial content should be sent to:
dseditor@tgc.com
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