SAN DIEGO, CA, October 02, 2007 -- San Diego Software Industry Council, an organization for the software and IT industry in San Diego, today announced that it is hosting the country’s first conference on analytics, “The Forum on Analytics: From Data to Decision,” to be held in Del Mar, Calif., on October 25, 2007, from 8:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Del Mar Marriott. The purpose of the event is to address the significant role of analytics in driving the development and success of businesses today. The event will feature presentations by leading analytics companies, many of which are part of the San Diego analytics cluster. The event is sponsored by Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe, Ernst & Young, JHG-Townsend, Teradata, Visual Sciences and Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich, Rosati, among others.

“Our goal for this event is to showcase the significant role this technology will play in the future of information technology and the impact of analytics on business,” said Bob Slapin, executive director of the San Diego Software Industry Council. “With such a concentration of veteran and up-and-coming analytics companies in the San Diego area, as well as the advances in analytics research led by The Jacobs School of Engineering at UCSD, SDSIC could not ignore the pressing need to provide a forum for these companies and thought leaders to interact and share ideas on the future of analytics.”

Historically, analytics were first used by financial and military institutions – both heavily concentrated in the San Diego area. With the spread of the digital revolution, the science of analytics has expanded to a growing number of fields, the key reason being that all digital information, whether collected via mouse clicks or phone records, can be analyzed for data-driven decision making.

“In order to maintain a competitive edge, businesses today rely on state-of-the-art analytic technologies to support their decision-making process,” said Joseph Milana, chief scientist of Fair Isaac. “With its academic resources, broad range of analytics companies and an analytics-savvy community, San Diego is in a great position to lead this field by continuing to create the most effective methodologies for helping companies worldwide make smarter business decisions.”

With a variety of analytics companies in fields such as Web and multi-channel analytics, credit, identity security, contextual routing, supply chain and video content concentrated in San Diego, the region’s growing knowledge base has created a booming analytics cluster. According to the cluster theory of economic development, a cluster is a group of organizations in related industries, made up of every part of the chain, that is linked together by the same infrastructure, customers and/or talent base. Companies that are part of an active cluster have proven to be more competitive and profitable with higher rates of innovation, greater productivity and help to foster a stronger regional economy.

“San Diego has witnessed the formation of an active analytics cluster accelerating the region’s economic growth, as it had previously with the telecom sector,” said Russ Mann, chief executive officer of SEMDirector. “We are looking forward to SDSIC’s analytics event, as it finally gives key players in this cluster a forum to come together and discover synergies that will benefit and encourage further expansion and development of the analytics industry overall.”

The half-day conference will provide attendees with a look at the current trends and future applications of analytics and its impact on how enterprises use data. The event will discuss the current use of analytics in mining data, predicting trends, optimizing performance and improving decision making. An afternoon of workshops focused on current scientific trends in analytics will follow the half-day conference.

Some of the companies and organizations that helped make San Diego the analytics “hub” include Fair Isaac, Teradata, Visual Sciences, Oracle, ID Analytics, Salford Systems, UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering, Veoh Networks, SEMDirector Inc., RealAge, Mission Ventures and more.

For more information on Forum on Analytics sponsors, speakers and event registration, please visit: http://www.sdsic.org/eventregistration.php?pageaction=register&eventid =294&offset=0. (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser’s address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

About SDSIC

Formed in 1994, the San Diego Software Industry Council is building a future for the region’s high tech industry. Our members enjoy exceptional networking and educational opportunities, critical workforce development programs and valuable company benefits. Whether you are a start-up, established industry leader or a provider of services to the industry, your company will benefit from a SDSIC membership. For more information please call 1.858.793.6655, email: sdsic@sdsic.org or go to www.sdsic.org.