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
*** Mar 23, 1999: Vol. 3, No. 12 ***
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IN THIS ISSUE:

ED COLET LOOKS AT VISUALIZATION
ARDENT SOFTWARE JOINS META DATA COALITION
NEW RESEARCH CONSORTIUM TRACKS BI/DW

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ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

LOOKING AT VISUALIZATION
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.

Previous articles that have appeared among the online pages of DS* have attested to the importance and value of data visualization. In general, visualization has been (and continues to be) useful in helping one see subtle trends and patterns in large amounts of data, patterns that otherwise may not have been apparent. As such, visualization has a close parallel with data mining. But like many data mining tools, visualization tools and software often also require high levels of technical sophistication on the part of users in order for it to be effective. In this column, we'll take a look at some end-user issues that influence the effectiveness of visualizations.

ARDENT SOFTWARE JOINS META DATA COALITION; MEMBERSHIP ADVANCES ARDENT'S META DATA INTEGRATION EFFORTS

Ardent Software, Inc., a leading global data management software company, has announced that it has joined the Meta Data Coalition, a not-for-profit consortium of 47 vendors and end-users leading the development of industry-wide standards for meta data exchange. Ardent will support the Meta Data Coalition's Meta Data Interchange Specification (MDIS), a file format which enables access and interchange of meta data between software tools.

NEW RESEARCH CONSORTIUM TRACKS BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE/DATA WAREHOUSING

World Research, Inc. has announced that, together with Palo Alto Management Group (PAMG), it has started the Consortium for Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing Research.

ACTION ITEMS

Hummingbird Acquires Financial Software Solution Context, Inc
Hummingbird Communications Ltd., a world-leading enterprise software company, has announces that it has signed an agreement to acquire all rights to Financial Frameworks, a software solution for the financial services industry from Context, Inc., a New York-based information technology firm specializing in software and consulting services for the financial industry.

Daman Consulting and Acquired Data Solutions Form Partnership to Offer "Factory-Floor-to-Data-Warehouse" Solutions
Daman Consulting, a premier provider of data warehouse and data movement solutions, and Acquired Data Solutions (ADS), a leading software consulting and engineering firm specializing in data acquisition, have announced a strategic, co-marketing partnership to offer solutions that combine both data warehouse implementations and data acquisition systems for manufacturing, testing, or analysis processes.

Hummingbird Acquires Data Transformation Company Leonard's Logic
Hummingbird Communications Ltd. has announced that it has acquired Leonard's Logic SA, makers of Genio, a leading data transformation and exchange tool. The acquisition will enable Hummingbird to offer a turnkey solution for rapid and cost-effective deployment of data marts integrated with a full range of business intelligence capabilities.

Unica Technologies, Inc. Announces Data Mining Training Series
Unica Technologies, Inc., a leader in the application of data mining to the marketing process, has initiated a series of unique new training courses. The courses will teach a variety of data mining techniques and will focus on the application of data mining in real-world marketing situations such as targeted customer acquisition, customer retention, cross-selling, and others.

IDC Study Finds Unisys ClearPath Enterprise Servers "Best of Breed" for I/O Intensive OLTP Applications
An independent study conducted by computer industry research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) appeared to demonstrate that Unisys ClearPath enterprise servers are superior to IBM System/390 and high-end Unix systems for large-scale, I/O (input/output) intensive on-line transaction processing (OLTP) applications.

CA Launches Free 30-Day Trial Offer for Neugents 03/23/99
Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) has announced it is offering its qualified clients a 30-day free trial license for Unicenter TNG Performance Neugents for Windows NT, the industry's first application of adaptive pattern recognition and neural network technology for enterprise management.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"Meta data management is and will continue to be a critical component in developing and maintaining the data warehouse." Ardent Software's Data Warehouse Business Unit.

CONFERENCES & SEMINARS 03.23.99

D S * INFORMATION

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