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DSS News
by D. J. Power
July 15, 2001 -- Vol. 2, No. 15
A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM
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Check the "For Developers" page at http://dssresources.com
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Featured:
* DSS Wisdom
* Ask Dan! -- Are Decision Support Systems really analytic applications
or are analytic applications really Decision Support Systems?
* What's New at DSSResources.COM
* DSS News Stories
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Each week in the summer, we have about 2700 unique visitors at
DSSResources.COM. Also, this newsletter has almost 600 subscribers from
50 countries. Please forward this newsletter to people interested in
Decision Support Systems or suggest they visit DSSResources.COM and
subscribe.
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DSS Wisdom
According to Bertrand Russell (1941), "There are very definite limits,
to my mind, within which rationality should be confined;
some of the most important departments of life are ruined by the
invasion of reason ... I believe there is in each of us a certain energy
which must find vent in actions not inspired by reason, but may find
vent in art, in passionate love, or in passionate hate, according to
circumstances. (pps. 11-12)"
Russell, B. Let the People Think: A Selection of Essays. London: Watts &
Co., 1941.
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IFIP WG 8.3 Conference on Decision Support Systems (DSS),
Decision Support in the Internet Age, Cork, Ireland,
July 4-7, 2002. Paper submissions due November 30, 2001.
Check http://afis.ucc.ie/dsiage2002/.
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Ask Dan!
Are Decision Support Systems really analytic applications or are
analytic applications really Decision Support Systems?
Henry Morris, VP for Applications and Information Access at IDC,
claims he coined the term "analytic applications" in 1997. In an article
titled "Trends in Analytic Applications", published in DM Review in
April 2001, Morris argues an analytic application must meet each of the
following three conditions: 1) provide process support,
it structures and automates a group of tasks pertaining to the review
and optimization of business operations or the discovery and development
of new business; 2) have separation of function, "the application can
function independently of an organization's core transactional
applications, yet it can be dependent on such applications for data and
might send results back to these applications"; and 3) use
time-oriented, integrated data from multiple sources.
Supposedly, three major types of analytic applications meet these
criteria: Financial/Business Performance Management,
Operations/Production, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
Morris notes that for an analytical application "technical specialists
build the simulation model using sophisticated tools. Decision-makers
then apply the model, gauging the probable
impact of a planned course of action."
Morris notes "Analytic applications will co-exist with business
intelligence tools." He also claims "Analytic applications are
specialized, supporting a structured business process, while business
intelligence tools are generic, supporting ad hoc user inquiries."
It seems we've been building analytic applications for a long time.
The term analytic applications seems to refer to a broad generic
set of information systems that are generally model-driven decision
support applications. There certainly are some decision support
applications that focus on decision tasks other than those associated
with supporting a structured business process. For example, DSS can
support collaboration, communication and information retrieval. Morris
also tells us the DSS that emphasize unplanned or ad hoc user inquiries
are not analytic applications.
Despite the above clarification you may still wonder if analytic
applications is a useful or meaningful term. Maybe!! The way Morris
defines it however seems overly broad and ambiguous. A quick mental
review of Financial/Business Performance Management applications,
Operations/Production applications, and Customer Relationship Management
applications indicates to me that the conceptualization has some
problems.
What do you think? Do you use the phrase "analytic application"? Is it
the "in" buzzword or another term to add confusion to the decision
support lexicon?
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What's New at DSSResources.COM
07/09/2001 Posted links to 6 articles from the 2001 Informing Science
Conference e-Proceedings Informing Decision-Makers and Decision Support
Systems track on the Articles On-line page, URL
http://DSSResources.COM/papers/dssarticles.html.
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DSS News Stories - June 30 to July 13, 2001
07/13/2001 Microsoft Outlook bug let's attackers run malicious programs
on a victim's computer.
07/12/2001 Meridian Health Care Management uses Business Objects
WebIntelligence® for a Financial Management Extranet.
07/11/2001 Tomoye introduced a knowledge sharing platform called
Simplify for Communities of Practice.
07/10/2001 Corporate and e-Business Portals conference, Boston, MA, July
30 - August 1, 2001. Check www.dci.com.
07/10/2001 Business Objects announced BusinessObjects Application
Foundation. It includes an Application Builder, 3 Advanced Analytic
Engines, and an Analytics Catalog.
07/10/2001 Microsoft announced Data Analyzer solution for Office XP. It
provides Graphical Capabilities to enable people to easily visualize and
analyze information.
07/09/2001/1:00 pm PDT After 5 days, Microsoft restored instant
messaging service to almost 10 million customers. However, some MSN
Messenger users were still experiencing log in problems.
07/09/2001 Vancouver Hospital & Health Sciences Centre implemented
Cognos' business intelligence (BI) solution.
07/03/2001 Ascential Software Corporation announced new ticker symbol,
ASCL.
07/02/2001 AMCIS 2001 Data Management and Decision Support session
schedule released. Visit AMCIS 2001 web site at
http://ecampus.bentley.edu/org/amcis2001/index.html
07/02/2001 Decisioneering's risk analysis tool is first choice of top
universities and academic publishers.
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http://dssresources.com/newsletters/ .
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