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
*** August 25, 1998: Vol. 2, No. 34 ***
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IN THIS ISSUE:

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH
BY INDERPAL BHANDARI
INPRISE CEO ENVISIONS NEW ENTERPRISE COMPUTING MODEL
WEB-BASED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS, PART II
BY D.J. POWER

ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE AND THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH
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.

Dr. Bhandari writes: "As the technologies of business intelligence take hold in corporations, the question is being asked: How can one discern which findings of a knowledge discovery program are true and which are spurious? If the history of scientific discovery is any guide, this fear is well founded. A recent article in the New York Times alerted me to an organization called the American Council on Science and Health. Based in New York, the council releases a popular report, Facts Versus Fears, that promises to be interesting reading. The report reviews the greatest unfounded health scares of the last five decades. The article in the New York Times draws on examples of those scares to make the point that it is wise to look closely at any new study before espousing its recommendations."

INPRISE CEO ENVISIONS NEW ENTERPRISE COMPUTING MODEL

In a major address to more than 3,000 attendees of its ninth annual user conference, ICON '98, Inprise Corporation's chairman and chief executive officer Delbert W. Yocam said the company's new enterprise application server will enable a new era in computing whose impact will far surpass relational databases as they exist today.

WEB-BASED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS: PART II
by D. J. Power

Editor of the World-Wide web site DSS Research Resources and the ISWorld pages on Decision Support Systems, Daniel Power is professor of Information Systems and Management in the College of Business Administration, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA. His research interests include the design and development of decision support systems and how DSS impact individual and organizational decision behavior. Power has published more than 20 articles and papers. He is also the senior author of a textbook titled Strategic Management Skills (Addison-Wesley, 1986). Power served as the Head of the Management Department at UNI from August 1989 to January 1996. He served as Acting Dean of the UNI College of Business Administration from January 1996 to July 31, 1996.

In the concluding article of a two-part series Power writes: "A number of DSS software companies provide case studies of successful DSS implementations at their Web sites. All of the Vendors are reporting favorable results from Web-based DSS. Arborsoft reports Bell Canada is implementing a Web-based DSS. According to a Bell Canada spokesperson '...the cost of deploying traditional client/server OLAP software makes it prohibitively expensive to enable the entire enterprise for OLAP...The Web dramatically alters the cost dynamics of delivering applications to users.' He notes 'All users need are a Web browser and a laptop computer. There's almost no training required, very low client costs and zero infrastructure costs. The intranet acts as a free wide area network.'"

For part one of this commentary, retrieve D S * article 100261 .

ACTION ITEMS

Fleet Bank Launches Enterprise Data Warehouse Based on Informix Technology
Informix Corporation, a technology leader in enterprise database-powered solutions, has announced that Fleet Bank, the tenth largest bank holding company in the United States, has launched an enterprise data warehouse, based on the Informix Dynamic Server with the Advanced Decision Support Option and the Extended Parallel Option.

Red Brick Ships Red Brick Formation
Red Brick Systems, Inc. has announced availability of Red Brick Formation 1.3, the newest addition to Red Brick DecisionScape that is designed to provide dynamic and scalable data extraction, transformation and movement capabilities in data warehousing and analytic application environments.

Avandel Healthcare Selects ThinkMed to Support Early Identification and Medical Management of Patients with Catastrophic Diseases
ThinkMed, LLC announced today that Avandel Healthcare, Inc. of Lynnwood, Wash. has selected ThinkMed Expert, a medical management data mining, clinical logic and decision support system, as the foundation for Avandel's Early Warning System. This system analyzes and interprets health care claims, encounter, demographic and provider data to identify patients who will benefit from Avandel's Catastrophic Care Assistance Program.

Informatica Offers Free Guide to Calculating Data Warehousing ROI
Informatica Corp., a provider of software for deploying enterprise business intelligence and analytic applications, is tackling the issue of data warehousing ROI (return on investment) head on. Available from Informatica is a free guide called "The 7 Steps to Calculating Data Warehousing ROI," which offers one of the industry's most complete information sources on how to measure the financial risk-return of an enterprise decision support system.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"We believe this is as sweeping a change to the information technology environment as the widespread adoption of the relational database in the early '80s."

CONFERENCES & SEMINARS 08.25.98

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