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
*** March 16, 1999: Vol. 3, No. 11 ***
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IN THIS ISSUE:

ED COLET DISCUSSES WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SMALL CHANGES HAVE LARGE EFFECTS
THE DANGERS OF NOT UNDERSTANDING SOURCE DATA
CORE ISSUES OVERLOOKED BY BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE USERS

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ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

WHEN SMALL CHANGES HAVE LARGE EFFECTS
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.

Colet writes: "Data mining software can process large amounts of data and detect patterns that people hadn't known existed. For the most part, this is done is by discovering unexpected associations between attributes (variables). The unexpected association between sales of beer and diapers is an example that has been cited ad nauseam in anything written about data mining (and my apologies for now being guilty of doing it myself). The association between variables may be useful knowledge by itself, and it can be even more useful if the association turns out to also reflect a causal relationship. What this column addresses is the usefulness of discovering subtle patterns - those characterized by small changes in one attribute having a significant effect upon another one."

IT PROJECT OVERRUNS AND FAILURES LINKED TO NOT UNDERSTANDING SOURCE DATA

Evoke Software Corp., a pioneer in Data Profiling technology, has announced that a new report from The Standish Group finds that information technology (IT) project overruns and failures can be attributed to a lack of understanding of the source data early on in the data migration process.

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE USERS NOW HAVE MORE CHOICE -- BUT CORE ISSUES STILL OVERLOOKED SAY ANALYSTS

New research from independent analyst group, Ovum, Inc., reports rapid transition and uncertainty in the business intelligence market -- also known as "decision support", and including data warehousing.

NOVELL REDUCES COST OF MANAGING MIXED-PLATFORM ENVIRONMENTS; NETWARE 5 NFS SERVICES DECREASES ADMINISTRATION RESOURCES REQUIRED FOR HETEROGENEOUS NETWARE 5 AND UNIX-BASED NETWORKS

Novell Inc. has announced the availability of NetWare 5 NFS (Network File System) Services, a software solution that simplifies administration of heterogeneous environments.

ACTION ITEMS

Who Are You Really Influencing? - New Functionality in Decisionhouse 2.0 Helps Marketers Unravel Even More Complexities of Customer Behavior
Quadstone's latest product release introduces Differential Response Analysis, a new approach to understanding customer action and behavior.

SPSS Seals Clementine Deal with U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency; Sale is Sign of Smooth Integration Following December Acquisition of ISL
The sale by SPSS of the high-end, visual data mining product, completed officially on February 10, indicates that the integration of ISL and SPSS is working successfully.

Ernst & Young Announces New Tools and Strategies to Enhance Benefits of SAP Business Information Warehouse and Data Warehousing Solutions for SAP
Ernst & Young LLP has announced a suite of proprietary Data Warehousing Solutions for the SAP R/3 solution to help clients realize strategic value from the business information made available through implementing SAP R/3 and the SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW).

Market Perspectives Announces Its New Online Market Snapshot Services to the Web Community for Free!
Market Perspectives announced the availability of Online Market Snapshots, a web-based market intelligence service for the high technology web community.

GE Financial Assurance Selects WhiteLight Analytic Application Server to "Turn Information into Productivity"; WhiteLight also Receives $1.5 Million Investment from GE Capital
WhiteLight Systems, Inc., has announced that GE Financial Assurance Holdings, Inc. (GEFA), a direct wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric Capital Corporation, has signed an enterprise licensing agreement for the WhiteLight Analytic Application Server. WhiteLight will support the decision processing of 400 concurrent users across eight GEFA business units in business-critical areas such as financial and sales analysis.

DISA Signs Strategic Deal with SAS Institute
SAS Institute Inc., a market leader in integrated data warehousing and decision support, has announced that it recently signed a strategic, five-year licensing agreement with The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) in excess of $21 million.

DataSage, Inc. Launches DataSage Customer Analyst, a Complete Customer Intelligence Product for the Retail Marketplace
Recently introduced by DataSage, Inc., a leader in customer intelligence software solutions, DataSage Customer Analyst enables businesses to better understand customer preferences by taking advantage of the massive amounts of point-of-sale (POS) data they currently collect.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"The most important trend in the business intelligence market is the shift 'from build to buy'."

CONFERENCES & SEMINARS 03.16.99

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