************************************************************ DSS News by D. J. Power January 6, 2002 -- Vol. 3, No. 1 A Bi-Weekly Publication of DSSResources.COM ************************************************************ Check Wasyluk and Saaty's U.S. Dept. of Veteran's Affairs case with Team Expert Choice at DSSResources.COM ************************************************************ 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 ************************************************************ 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. ************************************************************ 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. ************************************************************ Call for Papers: Decision Support Systems mini-track at AMCIS 2002-Dallas. Deadline 03/15/2002. ************************************************************ 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. ************************************************************ 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. ************************************************************ 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. ************************************************************ This newsletter is available online in the Subscriber Zone at http://dssresources.com/newsletters/ . ************************************************************ DSS News is copyrighted (c) 2002 by D. J. Power. Please send your email to power@dssresources.com. You have previously subscribed to the DSS News Mailing List. |