SPSS Announces AnswerTree 2.0; Features Performance and Data Access Improvements

Heads or tails? Flipping a coin is one approach to decision making, but for people looking for more reliable results, there's AnswerTree 2.0, decision-tree software from SPSS Inc. AnswerTree identifies segments, patterns and results-driving factors in data to help users make better decisions. SPSS announced the newest release of its desktop data mining package, and expects to ship the product in November 1998.

AnswerTree is ideal for people who need to identify and describe key groups in their data. For example, with AnswerTree 2.0, marketing managers can build profiles of their best customers; credit managers can identify characteristics of people likely to default on a loan; and healthcare managers can profile those patients most likely to respond to treatment. To uncover vital relationships and interactions among data, AnswerTree offers four decision-tree algorithms - more than any other desktop, decision tree software package. Each algorithm works best with certain types of data, so users can apply the right algorithm for each situation.

The latest version of AnswerTree boasts many highly requested new features including significant improvements to processing speed which allow users to create and grow trees at least five times more quickly; a new ODBC wizard which makes it possible for people to import data from any ODBC-compliant source such as Microsoft Access and other relational databases; and direct access to data stored in Oracle Express, BusinessObjects and SYSTAT. Additionally, a new setup wizard makes it easy for both advanced and novice users to set up their model. With the setup wizard, advanced users can specify a complete model up front and novice users can set up their model in three steps and accept the program's smart defaults to get started. Another new option allows users to select desired segments from the tree with criteria they establish themselves.

"Since we introduced it earlier this year, sales of AnswerTree have far exceeded our expectations. The response was so positive, we wanted to acknowledge our users quickly with the features they wanted most - greater speed and more data access options," AnswerTree marketing manager Anne Cress said. "The improvements in version 2.0 directly answer our customers' requests. They also strengthen what is already the most powerful decision tree software available to empower business managers as well as statisticians to easily segment and profile their data."

Other benefits of AnswerTree 2.0:

• Build better models with four algorithms - Users can build better models because AnswerTree's four powerful algorithms
  • CHAID, Exhaustive CHAID, QUEST and Classification and Regression Trees - provide flexibility in dealing with different types of data.
• Easily identify and evaluate groups - A tree diagram gives

  users an instant snapshot of the groups in their data, and charts and tables with summary statistics are displayed at every node so users can immediately see the differences between groups.

• Easily apply a model to new data or export it for more analysis - Users can apply their model to new data by saving the decision rules, generated automatically by the software, in SQL code or SPSS syntax and applying them to the new data source. This is useful, for example, to generate mailing lists for a direct mail promotion based on decision rules of who is most likely to respond. Users can also export data for selected segments in SPSS, SYSTAT or ASCII format.
• Get reliable results - To ensure a model's reliability, AnswerTree allows users to train their model on a subset of their data and validate it on the remaining data, or use cross-validation to split and validate the model on sub-samples. In both cases, a misclassification chart clearly reports the model's accuracy and estimated error.

System Requirements

• Windows 95 or NT 4.0
• 486DX processor or higher (with math co-processor)
• 50MB disk space (20MB for software; 30MB for data)
• 12MB RAM (16MB RAM strongly recommended)
• VGA monitor (SVGA recommended)

Pricing and Availability

The list price in North America for a single license of AnswerTree is $995. The price for users upgrading from version 1.0 is $99. A variety of pricing programs, including aggressive multiple unit pricing, site and network licensing are available.

Company information

SPSS Inc. is a multinational company that delivers "Statistical Product and Service Solutions" - in-depth reporting, analysis and modeling software that enables people to better analyze their data for more informed decisions. SPSS consists of three businesses: SPSS for business analysis, including market research and data mining; SPSS Science for scientific research and SPSS Quality for quality improvement. SPSS products are used at more than 250,000 sites around the world in business, academia and government settings.

Celebrating its 30th Anniversary in 1998, SPSS is one of the most enduring software companies in the world. SPSS has won the following awards: ranked among Forbes 200 Best Small Companies in America; Business Week's Top 100 Growth Companies for 1997; placed No. 21 on the1998 Soft-letter 100, a ranking of the top 100 personal computer software companies in the United States; and ranked No. 87 in the 1998 Software 500, a ranking of the world's largest software vendors by Software Magazine. Headquartered in Chicago, SPSS has offices and distributors around the world. For more information, visit http://www.spss.com