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                          DSS News
                       by D. J. Power
               January 6, 2002 -- Vol. 3, No. 1
         A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM

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  Check Wasyluk and Saaty's U.S. Dept. of Veteran's Affairs
      case with Team Expert Choice at DSSResources.COM
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Featured:

* DSS Wisdom
* Ask Dan! - How does a Web-based DSS differ from a Web-enabled DSS?
* What's New at DSSResources.COM
* DSS News Stories

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This newsletter has more than 750 subscribers from 
50 countries. Please forward this newsletter to people interested in 
Decision Support Systems or suggest they visit DSSResources.COM.

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DSS Wisdom

According to Knight and McDaniel (1979), "Basically, there are three 
occasions when organizations are faced with nonroutine decision 
situations and must use collegial or political structures to make 
choices.  The first occasion arises when the organization is faced with 
scarce resources.  Then the organization must answer the question 'What 
are we doing that we can stop?'  The second case occurs when the 
organization has excess resources.  The question is 'Can we do something 
that we haven't done before?'  The third case develops when the 
organization feels the need for systems improvement.  The fundamental 
question in this case is 'Can we do what we are now doing better?' (p. 
142) "

Knight, K.E., and R.R. McDaniel, Jr. Organizations: An Information 
Systems Perspective. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1979.
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 Call for Papers: Decision Support Systems mini-track at
      AMCIS 2002-Dallas. Deadline 03/15/2002. 

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Ask Dan!

How does a Web-based DSS differ from a Web-enabled DSS?

In 1998, I noted that "when vendors propose a Web-based DSS they are 
referring to a computerized system that delivers decision support 
information or decision support tools to a manager or business analyst 
using a 'thin client' Web browser". I still often use the term Web-based 
DSS in such a broad, all-inclusive fashion, but vendors and MIS 
practioners are making some distinctions about the technology platform 
used to deliver decision support that need to be noted. Most notably the 
phrase "Web-enabled" has crept into the DSS lexicon. It is important to 
understand how a Web-based DSS differs from a Web-enabled DSS.

To highlight the difference in a simple, straightforward manner, I'd say 
the enabling technology differs. As I've noted previously,
"When the enabling technology used to build a DSS is the Internet 
and Web, it seems appropriate to call the system a Web-based DSS. 
(Power, 2000)". Web-based should mean the entire application is 
implemented using Web technologies including a Web server, HTML, CGI, 
and possibly database products like Oracle 9i or SQL server; Web-enabled 
means key parts of an application like a database remain on a legacy 
system, but the application can be accessed from a Web technology 
component and displayed in a browser. 

Some legacy DSS can be Web-enabled much faster and at a much
lower cost than would be involved if the DSS was redeveloped
using Web technologies. Also, many of the benefits of a Web-based
DSS can also result from a Web-enabled DSS. So a Web-enabled DSS may be 
the best choice for making an existing DSS more widely available.

Web technologies can be used to implement any category of DSS
including communications-driven, data-driven, document-driven, 
knowledge-driven, and model-driven DSS. At one point, most systems 
labeled "Web-based DSS" were linked to a data warehouse, but that is 
certainly no longer the case. A model-driven decision support simulation 
developed in Java can be delivered via the Web and so can a large 
HTML/XML text repository that is part of a document-driven DSS.

With a Web-based or a Web-enabled DSS no particular decision support 
software needs to be on the client computer. A Web browser and an 
Internet connection delivers the decision support functionality to the 
user. 

Power, D. J. "Web-based Decision Support Systems". DSstar, August 18 and 
25, 1998: Vol. 2, Nos. 33 and 34. 

Power, D. J. "Web-Based and Model-Driven Decision Support Systems: 
Concepts and Issues". Prepared for AMCIS 2000, Americas Conference on 
Information Systems, Long Beach, California, August 10th - 13th, 2000.

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What's New at DSSResources.COM

01/06/2002 Rotated Guestbook, What's New, and did other changes 
associated with a new year. For Old What's New, see the 2001 What's New 
page, 2000 What's New page, or the 1996-1999 What's New page.

12/20/2001 Posted article by Peterson, D., "The Politics of Data 
Warehousing", DSSResources.COM, 12/20/2001. Check Articles On-Line.

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DSS News Stories: December 10, 2001 to January 4, 2002

01/04/2002 CorVu launches HyperVu; a new business intelligence and 
Balanced Scorecard solution.

01/04/2002 South West Water selects Comshare MPC to drive strategic 
business analysis and financial planning.

01/03/2002 BMW Adopts Cognos as Worldwide Business Intelligence 
Standard.

01/03/2002 Teradata wins contract to provide Enterprise Data Warehouse 
for China Construction Bank.

01/02/2002 Westinghouse Government Services Electro-Mechanical Division 
will use eTimeMachine to integrate project management business 
processes.

01/01/2002 Call for Papers: Decision Support Systems mini-track AMCIS 
2002-Dallas. Deadline 03/15/2002. 

12/26/2001 MicroStrategy BI platform helps NDC find revenue and cost 
saving opportunities.

12/21/2001 IBM selected by European Centre for Medium-Range Weather 
Forecasts to build supercomputer for weather prediction.

12/20/2001 Security Bulletin: Attacker can gain control of networked 
client running MS Windows® XP.

12/20/2001 Business Objects announces BusinessObjects Developer Suite 
5.5.

12/19/2001 Facility Information Systems to provide Wachovia with 
enterprise facility management technology.

12/18/2001 Broward County Florida School District deploys Brio to 
improve classroom performance.

12/17/2001 California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) uses IBM BI solution for 
non-filer tax collection system.

12/17/2001 US Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) chose Brio Software to 
provide access to performance information.

12/13/2001 Alphablox teams with IBM to expand reach of InLine Analytics 
across the Enterprise.

12/10/2001 Los Angeles Police Department chooses Vality INTEGRITY™ to 
Ensure Address Accuracy. 

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