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 writes: "In the last few columns, I described Virtual Gold's conference, 'The Evolution of Data Mining: Technical Strategies to Beat your Competition by Year 2000' and then expanded on some of the messages from the conference. I will return to that theme later. In this column, I would like to dwell on a breaking story in the National Basketball (NBA) playoffs that sheds light on a fundamental issue in the business of data mining: What happens when all competitors make use of data mining? Does that level the playing field? Or is there still a competitive edge to be had and, if so, how does one get that edge?"

DATA MINING, MODELING, & PREDICTIVE SERVICES: EXTENDING FUNCTIONAL DECOMPOSITION
by John K. Thompson, Vice President - Marketing, Magnify Inc

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 comments: "In the previous article I discussed how monolithic data mining systems are being deconstructed and reconstituted as smaller units of functionality that are optimized for execution of portions of the data mining and predictive services tasks. I also alluded to how these smaller units are serving different constituencies. In this article, I extend that idea further."

THE ROLE OF TPC-D BENCHMARK RESULTS IN SELECTING A SERVER FOR BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE: PART III
by Daniel Graham

Daniel Graham is Global Strategy and Operations Executive for IBM Global Business Intelligence Solutions. In this final installment of a three-part series Graham notes: "Now for the metrics in TPC-D benchmarks. First on the list comes power, defined as the ability to give a single user the best response time. The trouble is: that is not the real world. It is a bit like comparing Formula One with rush hour city driving. Nobody in the data mining, data warehousing industry runs only one user at a time."

For the previous two articles in this series see 100165 & 100171.

ACTION ITEMS

Constellar Launches Software for Single-Pass Loading of Large Data Volumes
Constellar Corporation has introduced Constellar WarehouseBuilder, an enterprise software solution for high-performance, single-pass acquisition, transformation, aggregation and loading of large, complex data volumes into multiple data warehouses, data marts and leading OLAP products.

IBM Posts Data Analysis Record at Teraplex Integration Center
IBM analyzed what it claimed was the largest file ever created on an AS/400e, at its Teraplex Integration Center in Rochester, Minn. All 10 billion rows of data in the 2.5 terabyte file were examined in just 77 minutes, the equivalent of reading all the information in a stack of paper 75 miles high in under an hour and a half.

Sears Wins NCSA's 1998 Grand Challenge Award for Breakthroughs in Knowledge Management
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign presented Sears, Roebuck and Co. with the 1998 Industrial Grand Challenge Award. The award recognizes Sears for its use of high-performance information technology tools to make competitive breakthroughs in knowledge management.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"Statistically it is not in a client's interest to spend several months shaving half a million dollars off the price of a suitable server if that unit is going to return its price many times over in profits."
Daniel Graham

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