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DSS News
D. J. Power, Editor
January 18, 2004 -- Vol. 5, No. 2
A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM
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Check the MeritCare case by ProModel Staff
at DSSResources.COM
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Featured:
* Ask Dan! - What vendors dominate the DSS product space?
* What's New? at DSSResources.COM
* DSS News Releases
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Contact Ramesh Sharda (sharda@okstate.edu) to
nominate candidates for SIG DSS by 01/30/04
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Ask Dan!
What vendors dominate the DSS product space?
by Dan Power
In terms of Ask Dan! email, questions about DSS software and DSS vendors
ranks near the top. What DSS product is best? What is the largest DSS
software company? What vendors should I look at for my DSS project?
These questions can't be answered in any general way. The answers
depend upon your situation, criteria, needs, and so forth. I think
however that I can discuss what software vendors "dominate the DSS
product space".
Ultimately an evaluation of a DSS vendor's product comes down to the
company or department level -- can we use the product to develop the
specific decision support capabilities our managers need and want. Once
we answer that question in the affirmative, then we can examine cost,
scalability, maintenance and other important issues. For readers wanting
help in evaluating vendors for a specific DSS project check my 1997
article on "choosing enterprise-wide DSS software tips".
Near the beginning of each year industry analysts are tempted to look
ahead, to look backwards and/or to bestow awards. This Ask Dan! serves a
little bit of each of these purposes. I've consulted the trade press (DM
Review, Intelligent Enterprise), the awards lists and nominees
(InfoWorld, SIIA) and read the industry analyst's commentaries. I
regularly visit vendor web sites and attend vendor conferences when I'm
invited. I read many press releases and receive emails from some vendor
PR people. Some PR people pay more attention to DSS News and
DSSResources.COM than do others. I know I'm heavily influenced by "mind
share" issues, i.e., some vendors keep me better informed than do others
and I'm more familiar with some products than with others. Mine is not
an "objective" answer.
In the discussion that follows keep in mind that Decision Support
Systems development software is a broad, heterogeneous category of
products. Second, products serve different purposes associated with
building different types of DSS. Third, there is ambiguity in the term
"dominate". "Dominate" can refer to market share, product quality,
product leadership especially product innovation and even DSS "thought
leadership". My analysis subjectively rolls all of these issues
together. I'm not going to make detailed comparisons of feature lists or
report reader surveys or benchmark results. I've organized the following
discussion in terms of the five broad DSS categories in my expanded DSS
framework (Power, 2002).
Communications-Driven DSS Development Products
The software product that provides the most capabilities for building a
customized communications-driven DSS is IBM Lotus Notes/Exchange. The
recent case study at DSSResources.COM by Matt Walton "Rebuilding an
Emergency Operations Center for NYC following 9/11" showcases what is
possible. Notes can be used as a generic communications-driven DSS
environment or it can be customized to create a more specific
communications-driven DSS. Microsoft is discontinuing NetMeeting.
Groove Networks (http://www.groove.net) is aggressively pursuing some
innovative solutions.
Data-Driven DSS Development Products
The most common data-driven DSS is built using a data warehouse product
and a report and query product (OLAP/business intelligence software).
This category involves billions of U.S. dollars in product sales each
year. Recently, I bought a used copy of Bill Inmon's 1991 DSS book at
Amazon.Com. Inmon's book provided the conceptual foundation for what I
call data-driven DSS. Inmon and Ralph Kimball ("Dr. DSS") have had the
major impact on what IS practioners think of when the term DSS is used.
DM Review and Intelligent Enterprise broadly cover this part of the DSS
product space with some overlapping coverage into other DSS product
categories.
On October 24, 2003, DM Review announced it's top 100 companies serving
the business intelligence community as identified by its readers. The
top 5 were: #1 IBM, #2 Oracle, #3 Microsoft, #4 Hewlett-Packard, and #5
Business Objects.
From my perspective, IBM has lost its direction in terms of DSS and
especially data-driven DSS. Researchers at IBM were clearly involved in
the 1980s and 90s in DSS thought leadership, but that is no longer the
case. Oracle database products are used to build data warehouses and
marts, but Oracle has always been more oriented to transaction
processing than DSS. Microsoft could dominate this space with SQL server
and Excel, but there is no overarching DSS vision at Microsoft that I
can identify. A Microsoft partner Proclarity is much more attuned to
decision support needs and the folks at Proclarity have certainly made
their product more visible to me. I'm not certain why Hewlett-Packard
made the list. Business Objects sells a business intelligence product
and the company was an early innovator in developing technologies for
building data-driven DSS; Business Objects does not however dominate the
product space, but it is an important vendor of software for building a
reasonably sophisticated data-driven DSS. Bill Inmon noted recently
(12/18/03) that Business Objects is "the workhorse of the data mart
crowd, BO sets the pace for what is meant by end user business
intelligence".
My pick for the company that dominates the data-driven DSS product space
is NCR Teradata, especially in terms of building a data warehouse. I
have had the most contact with Teradata staff of any DSS vendor and if
they treat their customers as well as they have treated me (and I've
heard they do) that is a big plus. Teradata leads in innovation, it's
parallel DB technology is superior and it's product delivers outstanding
query performance. Inmon noted "when it comes to innovation and
understanding the value proposition of data warehouse on a vertical
basis, nobody can touch NCR Teradata". Teradata software is not the best
for building a web-based user interface for a data-driven DSS, but that
is probably intentional so they don't undercut Business Objects, Cognos,
Hyperion and Microstrategy. In terms of the front-end for a data-driven
DSS (business intelligence software) my pick is MicroStrategy. Inmon
says "MicroStrategy has a whole houseful of happy campers". The BI
software vendors have targeted various vertical markets and
MicroStrategy seems especially strong in retailing.
The BAM (TIBCO) and BPM merchants are changing the dynamics in this
product space. Mergers and consolidations are also having an impact. For
example, Business Objects acquired Crystal Decisions, Hyperion acquired
Brio, and Geac acquired Comshare. Vendors of GIS software (Intergraph)
are also moving into this product space as did the vendors of
statistical software (SAS, SPSS) in the mid-1990s.
Document-Driven DSS Development Products
I am not an expert on the knowledge management and document management
software. So feel free to comment. The company in this product space
that I have followed most closely is Documentum. In 2002, Documentum
acquired eRoom which was an innovative environment for collaboration and
communications-driven decision support. Recently EMC acquired
Documentum. I think EMC/Documentum does and will dominate this DSS
product space. The Documentum case at DSSResources.COM titled
"Optimizing Aircraft Maintenance Operations using a Document-driven DSS"
showcases some of the possibilities.
Knowledge-Driven DSS Development Products
In this product space the company that dominates is EXSYS
(http://www.exsys.com/). The website proclaims that EXSYS is "the World
Leader in Knowledge Automation Expert System Software and Services". It
is in my opinion. Exsys CORVID version 3.0 was recently released. EXSYS
has been around for almost 20 years, but the Web has really changed the
dynamics of this type of DSS. Sophisticated distributed
Knowledge-Driven DSS are now really feasible. The case I wrote with
Craig Pontz of the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry used
EXSYS technology. You can find it in the subscriber zone at
DSSResources.COM.
Model-Driven DSS Development Products
This product space is the most fragmented and it has some large vertical
market vendors. Frontline Systems (http://www.solver.com/) dominates in
terms of optimization-based DSS development software. In terms of Excel
simulation add-ins, I have had the most contact with
Decisioneering/Crystal Ball. The product gets used however more for risk
analysis in special decision support studies than for building DSS.
Recently, I published a case study from ProModel Healthcare Solutions on
a visual simulation-based decision support solution for MeritCare. There
is no broad development environment for building model-driven DSS. This
product market is not effectively dominated by any single vendor even
though Microsoft Excel is the most commonly used development
environment for Model-Driven DSS.
Vendors and developers always need to monitor product innovations and
that is especially true in the five DSS product space categories
discussed above. Please note that Iteration real-time suite
(http://www.iteration.com) was named the 2004 technology of the year by
InfoWorld. Software and Information Industry Association
(http://www.siia.net) 2004 Codie Awards nominees for best business
intelligence or knowledge management solution include: Celequest 2.0,
Celequest, Inc.; Cymfony Brand Dashboard V2, Cymfony Inc.; Khalix,
Longview Solutions; Noetix Enterprise Technology Suite (NETS), Noetix
Corp.; and SageAnalyst IMDR, SageMetrics. In the best business software
product or service is Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite 7.0 from
Ascential Software.
As always your comments are welcomed and DSS software vendors are
invited to send me email, press releases, and so forth. If I neglected a
vendor, let me know.
I should mention the Google Adsense advertisers at DSSResources.COM that
have Data-Driven DSS development products including Avega Health
Systems, MicroStrategy, Peak Analytics, and UniFact. Avega is a niche
player in this product space that provides data-driven financial
decision support for the health care industry. Peak Analytics and
UniFact are newcomers in the BI product space. Also, as a matter of
disclosure I have received financial support from Teradata the past 2
years to attend the Teradata Partners fall conference. I do own a very
small amount of stock in EMC, Microsoft and Oracle.
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References
Inmon, W. H., Database Machines and Decision Support Systems: Third Wave
Processing, Boston: QED Information Sciences, Inc., 1991.
Inmon, W. H., "Inmon Thought Leadership and Innovative Product list,"
News from Inmon Associates, Inc. Volume 3, Issue 9, December 18, 2003.
Power, D. J., Decision Support Systems: Concepts and Resources for
Managers, Westport, CT: Greenwood/Quorum Books, 2002
Power, D. J. "Tips for Choosing Enterprise-wide DSS Software". DSstar,
The On-Line Executive Journal for Data-Intensive Decision Support,
November 18, 1997: Vol. 1, No. 7, URL
http://dssresources.com/papers/dsssoftwareeval/index.html
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What's New? at DSSResources.COM
01/09/2004 Posted case by ProModel Staff, "MeritCare Health System uses
simulation to optimize integration of service areas into new day unit".
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DSS News - January 5, 2004 to January 16, 2004
Read them at DSSResources.COM and search the DSS News Archive
01/15/2004 BAM! BEA can help customers monitor business activity.
01/15/2004 St. Louis Cardinals deploy E Solutions' software to scouts
and front office staff.
01/14/2004 Hyperion certifies Business Performance Management solutions
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01/14/2004 Northern Illinois University's Advanced Geospatial Laboratory
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01/12/2004 Airpower Software releases five new interactive aircraft
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01/12/2004 ADVIZOR(R) 3.6 provides easy-to-author analytical dashboards
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01/12/2004 Cymfony's dashboard recognized among top software products;
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01/12/2004 MicroStrategy Report Services wins praise from business
intelligence systems integration specialists.
01/12/2004 ProfitLogic launches ProfitLogic 2004: an expanded
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01/09/2004 Intergraph goes online with new geospatial infrastructure
management solutions demo.
01/09/2004 Iteration real-time suite named 2004 technology of the year
by InfoWorld; honored as best analytics/reporting solution.
01/08/2004 Business Objects releases Crystal Version 10 products.
01/08/2004 Geac enhances performance management product line with rapid
integration capability for existing enterprise customers.
01/08/2004 Insightful Miner selected as a finalist for the 19th annual
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companies.
01/06/2004 eMoney Advisor wins CPA Wealth Provider's first annual
financial planning award; award recognizes top providers of financial
planning software.
01/06/2004 High-Tech Tool helps physicians reduce medical errors and
prescription drug costs.
01/06/2004 GERS to introduce advanced sales audit module at NRF; new
functionality automates the entire auditing process for greater accuracy
and shorter time to close.
01/06/2004 IDG's InfoWorld names top technologies impacting IT in 2004;
annual Technology of the Year Awards honor 19 innovative solutions.
01/06/2004 Sybase announces availability of enterprise RDBMS on Mac OS X
Panther.
01/06/2004 Business and Financial reporting applications get boost from
release of latest XBRL specification version 2.1.
01/05/2004 Premier Web Services Analyst Spotlights Ascential Software
Leadership in $43 Billion Web Services Market.
01/05/2004 U.S. Air Force awards Lockheed Martin Team $20 million
contract for development of next generation Global Positioning System.
01/05/2004 LoanPerformance selects MicroStrategy for improved analysis
and reporting of the mortgage industry data trends.
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DSS News is copyrighted (c) 2004 by D. J. Power. Please send your questions to
daniel.power@dssresources.com.
minor corrections were made to the emailed version.
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