Conference nsic00::eis_dw

[First! for the Web]

IBM plans to pump up data mart suite

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Date: Monday, February 10, 1997
Source: Computerworld
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Computerworld via Individual Inc. : Taking a little-acorns-into-large-oaks
approach, IBM plans to scale up its integrated data mart suite in the next
few months so users can use it to build and manage full-fledged data
warehouses.

Like similar bundles that emerged last year from Sybase, Inc. and others,
IBM's Visual Warehouse handles only small-scale data marts, which hold a
subset of a company's historical information or are designed for individual
departments. IBM recommends that data marts be less than 70G bytes.

But IBM will add data-loading agents to Visual Warehouse, which will
eliminate its size constraints and let it scale to the terabyte range, said
George Zaglow, a business intelligence segment manager at IBM.

New Unix, AS/400 and OS/2 releases are due by May, and a mainframe version
will follow in the second half of the year, Zaglow said.

If Visual Warehouse can be beefed up, its integrated tool set might reduce
the ``constant'' software integration and management headaches that are
common on big data warehouse projects, said Mick Haney, a technical
services analyst at Hallmark Cards, Inc. in Kansas City, Mo. Tying together
different warehouse tools ``is a major undertaking,'' he added.

And tools that handle large warehouses are also ``still very high-end and
expensive,'' said Theresa Wingfield, an analyst at Giga Information Group
in Cambridge, Mass.

By contrast, pricing for data mart suites starts at less than $100,000.
Pricing for the scalable Visual Warehouse hasn't been finalized, Zaglow
said.
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[First! for the Web]

IBM may acquire database software firm/ Interview

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Date: Friday, February 21, 1997
Source: Nikkei English News
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Nikkei English News via Individual Inc. : International Business Machines
Corp. of the U.S. is considering buying a database software firms to
further strengthen its network software business, IBM senior vice president
John M. Thompson said Thursday.

In an interview with the Nihon Keizai Shimbun in Tokyo, Thompson, who heads
IBM's software group, declined to identify the target companies.

IBM has acquired 10 software developers, including Lotus Development Corp.,
and set up joint ventures with 20 firms during 1996.

The company's new areas of focus are database application tools and data
warehousing, according to Thompson.

Stressing IBM's lead in computer networks, Thompson said the company will
aggressively market network servers and server software solutions.

<<Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Inc. -- 02-21-97>>
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    see also 52.20
    

[First! for the Web]

IBM exchanges cheap data mining for revenue share

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Date: Tuesday, April 29, 1997
Source: Financial Times London Edition
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Financial Times London Edition via Individual Inc. : International Business
Machines is offering to drop its prices in exchange for a cut of clients'
profits as it tries to prove the value of high-technology marketing
programmes known as "data warehousing".

The computer company is a recent entrant in the fast-growing field of data
warehousing and data mining, techniques which help companies exploit the
information they have on their customers' behaviour patterns.

In one agreement, IBM has undertaken to rebuild a large US insurer's
customer database for a cut-price rate plus up to 20 per cent of the
revenues generated.

IBM, which is charging the insurer an initial $8m ({GBP}4.9m) compared with
the $20m its costs would ordinarily dictate, believes new data warehousing
techniques can attract 300,000 customers, worth $12m a year, to its client.

The computer company has agreed to share risk and reward with three large
clients since September.

"We are putting our money where our mouth is," said Mr Evangelos Simoudis,
head of IBM's decision support solutions group.

The innovative data warehousing contracts are the latest example of the
deepening involvement of computer services companies, such as IBM and
Electronic Data Systems, in their clients' businesses.

IBM doubts, however, that its clients will in the long term outsource the
management of their customer databases. "As they become more familiar with
these systems they will realise that they are giving the store away," said
Mr Simoudis.

Data warehouses are electronic filing systems, many of which contain more
than 1 terabyte of information, the equivalent of 300m pages of text.

They are then "mined" for customers' behaviour patterns, some of which are
unexpected: one retailer discovered 82 per cent of motorcycle owners bought
frozen seafood.

This analysis can help a company predict the likelihood of customers taking
up a special offer, for instance, and the extent to which sales of other
products will suffer or benefit as a result.

About 90 per cent of the largest 500 companies in the US have constructed
data warehouses in the past two years. NCR, the US-based computer group,
will today unveil a range of products designed to supply the fast-growing
market for electronic commerce using the Internet, writes Paul Taylor. The
new strategy, developed with partners including Netscape Communications,
Microsoft, Computer Associates an d Cisco Systems, is intended to help
NCR's customers build reliable corporate intranets - internal networks
built around Internet technologies. NCR's new products include web data
warehouse software which will allow corporate intranet users as well as
customers, suppliers and business partners to retrieve information from a
company's databases. Copyright Financial Times Limited 1997. All Rights
Reserved.

<<Financial Times London Edition -- XX0428, p. 25>>
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