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
*** May 18, 1999: Vol. 3, No. 20 ***
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IN THIS ISSUE:

ED COLET DISCUSSES MAKING DECISIONS BASED ON THE RISK OF BEING WRONG
DAMAN CONSULTING DEVELOPS NEW HYBRID DATA WAREHOUSE
ROCKWELL AUTOMATION AND VISUAL INSIGHTS SIGN LICENSING AGREEMENT

ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

MAKING A DECISION BASED ON THE RISK OF BEING WRONG
By Ed Colet

Executive Editor-at-Large Inderpal Bhandari presents a guest editorial by Virtual Gold's Acting Director of Research:

The objective of data mining software is to find hidden patterns in data. With large data sets, it is necessary to rely on data mining's powerful algorithms and data processing routines to process large data sets efficiently. But the determination of what constitutes an interesting pattern is usually based on a quantitative threshold implemented as part of the data mining algorithms. Set the threshold too low and too many patterns are presented to the user as interesting, many of which are therefore erroneously classified as such. On the other hand, a threshold that is set too high, means that too few patterns are presented as interesting, and therefore some meaningful patterns remain hidden in the data away from the user. Whatever the threshold value, there is always a risk of error. How might valid decisions be made despite the pervasive possibility of error?

THE OBJECT PEOPLE ANNOUNCES THE GENERAL AVAILABILITY OF THE 2.O RELEASE OF TOPLINK FOR JAVA

The Object People, a leading international provider of products, education and services for object-oriented and distributed technologies, announces the general availability of the 2.0 release of TOPLink for Java. An advanced object/relational mapping tool, TOPLink is a transparent, non-intrusive, robust framework that facilitates access from Java to new and legacy data stored in relational databases.

DAMAN CONSULTING DEVELOPS NEW HYBRID DATA WAREHOUSE FOR NATIONAL CITY CORPORATION

Daman Consulting, a premier provider of data warehouse and enterprise application integration solutions, has announced the successful development and deployment of a "transactional data store" (TDS) for National City Corporation, a leading financial services provider.

BUSINESS OBJECTS ANNOUNCES WEBINTELLIGENCE 2.5

Business Objects, a leading provider of integrated enterprise decision support tools, has announced WebIntelligence 2.5, a new version of the company's integrated query, reporting, and online analytical processing (OLAP) solution for the web.

ROCKWELL AUTOMATION SIGNS LICENSING AGREEMENT WITH LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES' VISUAL INSIGHTS

Complete automation leader Rockwell Automation signed a software licensing agreement with Visual Insights, a wholly owned venture of Lucent Technologies, that enables Rockwell Software to dramatically enhance the query, analysis and reporting capabilities of a number of Rockwell Software products, including human-machine interface and database transaction manager products.

ACTION ITEMS

Police Agency in the Netherlands Selects Brio Technology for Business Intelligence
Brio Technology, Inc. has announced that one of the largest police regions in the Netherlands -- the Hague -- has selected Brio Enterprise as the front-end business intelligence tool for its new data warehouse.

Fiserv Announces New Knowledge Management Application to Sharpen Marketing Capabilities for Financial Institutions
Fiserv, Inc. has announced that it has developed a data warehousing business application designed to improve the marketing efforts for financial institutions.

NCR and Quadstone Launch International Alliance
NCR Corporation and Quadstone Limited have launched a strategic partnership to drive more effective customer relationships.

M&I Data Services and MicroStrategy Announce Partnership to Enhance Data Warehouse Solution
M&I Data Services, a leading financial software and services provider, has announced it has signed a Value-Added Reseller Partnership Agreement with MicroStrategy Incorporated, Vienna, Va., a leading worldwide provider of mission-critical decision support systems.

QueryObject Systems Chooses ISG Navigator for Data Feed to Intelligent Datamart Product Suite
ISG International Software Group Ltd. and QueryObject Systems Corporation, a leader in the business intelligence market, have announced an agreement whereby QueryObject will embed ISG Navigator in each shipment of QueryObject System software.

Empirical Software Announces Empirical Director 3.5 with Unparalleled Predictive Service Level Management Capabilities
Empirical Software, Inc., a leading provider of end-to-end service level management (SLM) solutions for enterprise applications, has announced Empirical Director 3.5, enabling a proactive approach to service level management across the enterprise.

Republic National Bank Deploys Algorithmics' RiskWatch 3.1 Globally
RiskWatch allows RNB to build upon their immense success with the modeling of off-balance sheet risks from trading activities, by providing a complete set of methodologies to measure risk and simulate exposures across the entire balance sheet, including mortgage backed securities, asset-backed securities and bonds.

Software Solutions Introduces Data Warehouse Solution for the Distribution Market
Software Solutions, Inc., a leading provider of software and services for the distribution market, has announced TakeStock Data Warehouse, the latest new software product from it popular distribution management suite, that will allow distributors to perform in-depth business analysis and data mining to improve the decision-making process.

Data General and CyberPlus Announce New Data Warehousing Solution for the Healthcare Industry
Integrated with Data General's healthcare solutions, the CyberPlus ExecBridge applications bring enhanced front-end visualization and decision support software to healthcare organizations' data warehousing solutions.

Cartia ThemeScape 2.0 Targeted at Enterprise Portals and Business Intelligence
Based on Cartia's proprietary Relational Topic Mapping (RTM) technology, ThemeScape automatically reads large numbers of documents, recognizes the informational content, and organizes the collection by topic onto a visual map. Version 2 makes the technology accessible via the web.

CA Announces Breakthrough Jasmine TND, the Ultimate Intelligent Infrastructure For E-Business Applications
CA's revolutionary Neugents neural agent technology, which can detect complex, otherwise unseen patterns in huge volumes of data, has been built directly into Jasmine TND. Neugents enables a new generation of business applications that can not only analyze conditions in business markets and technical environments, but can also predict changes in those conditions.

Leading Organizations Rely on PLATINUM DecisionBase to Maximize Investments in ERP Data
PLATINUM technology has announced that leading organizations are leveraging PLATINUM DecisionBase for data transformation and movement to speed deployment of ERP systems, such as PeopleSoft and SAP, and maximize the value of data contained in the systems.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"There is a need for transactional data warehouses that complement the historic warehouse by capturing up-to-the-minute customer behavior for analysis."

CONFERENCES & SEMINARS 05.18.99

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