In-Depth

Briefs: Insightful Miner adds Windows, Solaris support, SAS updates Value Chain Analytics

Data mining tool adds Windows, Solaris support, new visualization components

• By Stephen Swoyer
• 06/11/2003

Insightful Corp., a provider of software solutions for the analysis of numerical and text data, announced version 3 of Insightful Miner.

New in the product are support for Windows and Solaris platforms plus native database drivers for accessing data warehouses in Oracle, Sybase, DB2, or Microsoft SQL Server environments.

Insightful Miner version 3 features visual workmaps, support for server-based analysis and deployment environments, and new features that the company says enable data analysts to build and deploy predictive models.

Other features include new deployment capabilities for creating Web-based, run-time and batch applications. The server versions can optionally include C code generation, Predictive Model Markup Language import/export, and new batch mode capabilities. Insightful Miner 3 also boasts new data viewers—including 18 new visualization components—along with expanded data preparation features and a scalable Cox regression component for analysis of censored data. Users can also use the tool to create and manage custom libraries of analytical methods.

See http://www.insightful.com for more details.

SAS Revamps Value Chain Analytics

SAS Institute Inc. recently announced version 6 of Value Chain Analytics, a solution designed specifically for retailers, distributors, wholesalers, and manufacturers in the consumer package goods and retail industries.

A component of SAS’ Supply Chain Intelligence suite, Value Chain Analytics allows organizations that work in the value chain to reduce product costs and increase profitability from post-production to retail check-out.

New capabilities in Value Chain Analytics 6 include the ability to view and model distribution systems, as well as analyze distribution systems—including individual products, customers, or suppliers.

The new product uses SAS’ data access and analytics capabilities to determine the financial impact of decisions on product cost and profitability. It features a new interface to automate the process of modeling and viewing distribution systems for analysis. The product can exploit information already stored in an organization’s procurement, warehousing, logistics, category management, and ERP systems. SAS says that this has the effect of reducing build time to as little as five minutes.

For the first time, Value Chain Analytics 6 supports all products and customers/suppliers in a distribution system. Previously, the SAS software monitored and analyzed representative samples of value chain data. SAS has also improved the calculation speed.

See http://www.sas.com/solutions/vca/ for more details.