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
*** March 2, 1999: Vol. 3, No. 9 ***
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IN THIS ISSUE:

LOOKING AT DATA MINING THROUGH A PORTAL
BY ED COLET
SPSS UNVEILS AGGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT PLANS
META DATA REPOSITORY STANDARD NEARS

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ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

LOOKING AT DATA MINING THROUGH A PORTAL
by Ed Colet, Virtual Gold, Inc

Ed Colet is the Acting Director of Research at Virtual Gold Inc., responsible for developing analytical methods for data mining and for investigating human factors and usability issues of business intelligence systems. At present, he is in the final stage of completing a doctoral dissertation in the Cognition and Perception program at New York University's Department of Psychology. Ed has also worked for IBM Research at the T.J. Watson Research Center. At IBM, Ed was a member of the group that developed Advanced Scout, the data mining application for NBA teams. His research interests focus on statistical methods and human factors.

Colet observes: "Portals are becoming an increasingly important trend in IT today. It's anticipated that sales of enterprise portal software will be $15 billion by 2002. A portal is a browser interface that provides access to information content. Yahoo is an example of a portal for viewing the content on the World Wide Web. An emerging trend is the use of portals not only to access WWW content but to also access corporate data. The concept of a corporate data portal promises to be useful for a variety of reasons. It provides dynamic and customized data access, and easier management of views into distributed and diverse data sources. But as this column shows, explicit data mining considerations can be especially relevant and important as well."

SPSS UNVEILS AGGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT PLANS; 1999 PRODUCT RELEASES WILL FOCUS ON SCALABILITY AND DEPLOYMENT SOLUTIONS FOR THE ENTERPRISE

With stores of enterprise data growing daily, organizations need analytical products that maximize their data warehouse investment and allow them to not only stay competitive but gain a critical edge in the marketplace. SPSS Inc.'s 1999 development strategies for its core analytic line focus on helping companies meet these challenges successfully, through the introduction of products that offer unique insight into the corporate "numbers" through scalable analytical solutions as well as creative mechanisms to deploy results throughout organizations.

META DATA REPOSITORY STANDARD NEARS
by Stewart Deck

Data warehouse users may be closer to a meta data repository standard that will help them tie together data from multiple systems in one place.

DATA WAREHOUSING: AN OVERVIEW

Data warehousing is the technology trend most often associated with enterprise computing today. The term conjures up images of vast data banks fed from systems all over the globe, with legions of corporate analysts mining them for golden nuggets of information that will make their companies more profitable.

ACTION ITEMS

Sun Microsystems Dot-Coms the Data Center
Widely recognized as a driving force behind Internet innovation, Sun Microsystems, Inc. has unveiled its vision for the fast approaching networked data center, along with its new Sun datacenter.com initiative that includes more than a dozen new products, programs and services that will speed a customer's transition to this new model.

Anubis Announces New Integration Module to Speed Deployment of Microstrategy Decision Support Applications
Anubis, has announced that its Constructa design platform will incorporate a new decision support module to seamlessly integrate with MicroStrategy Incorporated's award-winning decision support products, DSS Agent and DSS Architect.

PLATINUM technology Demonstrates New 3D Visualization Solution Leveraging Intel`s Pentium III Processor
At Intel Corporation's Pentium III Processor Preview Day, PLATINUM technology demonstrated a new Internet-based business solution developed for Intel that leverages PLATINUM's 3D visualization software and services.

Information Builders Introduces Analytical Application Template for Insurance Industry
Information Builders, a global leader in data integration, data warehousing and decision support, is introducing InfoCube for Insurance, a Web application template that delivers a high percentage of the analytical information most commonly requested by insurance industry managers.

Clustor 1.5 Opens Up to Banks
Active Tools, producer of Clustor, a software tool that transforms PCs into supercomputers, has announced an upgrade with exciting new features for banks and the finance industry.

IBM Announces Availability of Finance Industry's First End-To-End Relationship Marketing Solution
IBM has announced availability of the finance industry's first complete relationship marketing solution that allows small community banks through large global financial institutions to better understand customers, tailor their marketing strategies and thus, increase profitability while reducing costs.

Fair, Isaac`s Fusion Technology Improves Credit Card Fraud Detection at Total System Services, Inc
Card issuers can now reduce the time and costs involved in fraud detection using Fair, Isaac and Company, Inc.'s fraud models at Total System Services, Inc.

Mindmaker Now Shipping DataScope 2.0; Advanced Data Mining & Decision Support Software Solution Allows PC Users to Quickly and Easily Conduct Professional-level Data Analysis
Mindmaker, Inc. (previously known as Associative Cognition), a leading developer of intelligent personal assistants, speech I/O interfaces, and other artificial intelligence technology, announced that it is now shipping its DataScope 2.0 software package.

Sybase Introduces Comprehensive Line of Business Intelligence Applications for Industry-Specific Markets
Sybase, Inc. has announced that it will make available a series of industry-specific business intelligence applications that provide significant information directly related to assisting corporations in improving their competitive positioning within their marketplace.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Increasingly, companies with cutting-edge websites are looking to 3D visualization technology as a way to give them a competitive edge." commerce division

CONFERENCES & SEMINARS 03.2.99

D S * INFORMATION

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