NCR and ISL Strengthen Data Mining Alliance, Announce Tighter Integration of ISL Technology with Teradata Database
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NCR Corporation and Integral Solutions Limited (ISL) have announced that the two companies had entered a new phase of their partnership in order to deliver maximum benefit to customers wishing to mine data from data warehouses that are built with NCR's Teradata relational database.

With the new relationship, ISL will integrate certain value-added features from NCR's Knowledge Discovery Workbench (KDW) into the next version of ISL's Clementine data mining product, Version 4.5. Using this new data mining tool for the Teradata relational database, customers will be able to mine through large volumes of data to get accurate and timely information about their businesses. NCR's KDW product, based on ISL's Clementine technology, included enhanced integration with the Teradata database and was localized for international markets.

In addition, NCR will now resell ISL Clementine Version 4.5 software. This data mining solution will be supported by both the NCR and ISL worldwide sales forces and Professional Services teams. For Japanese data warehouse customers, NCR's Knowledge Discovery Workbench 2.0, which is based on Clementine Version 4.5 -- the leading data mining tool developed for the Japanese market -- will continue to be supported and sold by NCR Japan.

To ensure that Teradata continues to be a leading industrial-strength platform for data mining, NCR and ISL will also collaborate to incorporate data mining assists into Teradata that will allow data mining tools, such as Clementine, to take advantage of NCR's strengths in middleware and database technologies.

"ISL has the vision and expertise to help NCR show customers how to leverage the power of the Teradata relational database," said Mark Hurd, vice president of Marketing for NCR's Computer Systems Group. "We will continue to partner with ISL and other industry leaders to not only offer best-in-class tools, but to evolve Teradata's leading performance and scalability characteristics to better meet customer needs."

In addition to working together to embed data mining functionality in Teradata, NCR and ISL are also partners in CRISP-DM, an international initiative to produce, publish and promote a non-proprietary standard process model for data mining.

"Data warehousing and data mining are a natural fit, each leveraging value from the other," said Alan Montgomery, ISL's CEO. "We've shown over the past two years that ISL and NCR can work together extremely well. We have a track record of delivering successful data mining solutions in finance, retail, telecommunications and other areas."

"NCR is the leading provider of data warehousing solutions and ISL has established a strong data mining presence with Clementine," added NCR's Hurd. "With this new relationship, we will both play to our core strengths, offering customers a win-win scenario. NCR sales and marketing organizations will be able to leverage data mining tools, such as Clementine, directly while our development organizations concentrate on ensuring that Teradata continues to be the world's best database platform for data mining. "

Industry-Specific Data Mining Solutions Using Clementine

Clementine data mining and analytical modeling capabilities will be used in certain NCR industry-specific data warehouse solutions. For example, Clementine is one of the data mining tools being integrated into NCR's Yield Management Solutions for the telecommunications industry. The Yield Management program is designed to help companies better understand and act on the value that each customer, product, and service brings to the business. This industry-specific offering consists of products, services and expertise that help communications companies improve their profitability by systematically targeting and managing customer segments and products.

Based on an open systems framework, the foundation for NCR's data warehouse solutions consists of the Teradata parallel database, designed to analyze massive amounts of data; scalable NCR WorldMark servers; and comprehensive data warehousing consulting service and support offerings, as well as world-class partner software and tools.

Teradata provides scalability from 10 gigabytes to more than 100 terabytes, seamless connectivity and low administration requirements. It employs a patented shared-nothing MPP (massively parallel processing) architecture that can be deployed on both SMP (symmetric multi-processing) and MPP hardware platforms. Teradata runs on UNIX, and will be available on Windows NT and Sun Solaris. Teradata is also being enhanced to support complex data types, userdefined objects and web integration.

Visit the NCR Teradata web site at http://www.ncr.com/teradata

ISL was founded in 1989 as a management buyout of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) products division of SD-SCICON, later to become the UK arm of EDS. Originally a supplier of artificial intelligence technology for defense and manufacturing sectors, ISL identified data mining as a future growth area, beginning its strategic investment in 1991. More information on ISL and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at: http://www.isl.co.uk