DM: PolyAnalyst 4.0 from Megaputer: final beta-testing program for the

[Sergei Ananyan]

(BW)(IN-MEGAPUTER) PolyAnalyst 4.0 - Final Beta-Testing Program for the Leading Data Mining Solution

    Business Editors, High-Tech Writers
    http://www.megaputer.com

BLOOMINGTON, Ind.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 13, 1999--Megaputer announces the final beta-testing program for PolyAnalyst 4.0, the newest version of the leading data mining solution. The rules for participation in the program, available bonus points and discounts, and the corresponding system requirements are described at the Megaputer web site. Users can participate in the beta-testing program until the official release of PolyAnalyst 4.0 on November 20th, 1999. Interested parties are invited to download and try hands-on an evaluation copy of PolyAnalyst 4.0 from www.megaputer.com/webshop.html

Version 4.0 represents a major upgrade of the system, positioning PolyAnalyst as the most comprehensive and versatile suite of data mining algorithms available today. PolyAnalyst now utilizes Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) technology, features ten unique machine learning algorithms, and furnishes versatile data manipulation, visualization, and scoring capabilities. An open DCOM architecture makes PolyAnalyst 4.0 easily extendable, upgradable and customizable, providing the user with an option to purchase only the necessary algorithms as individual modules. In addition to clustering, predicting, dependency detecting, and yes/no classifying, PolyAnalyst 4.0 solves tasks of explicit modeling, detection of association rules in transactional data, and classification to multiple categories.

New features of PolyAnalyst 4.0 include:

* New Market Basket Analysis algorithm for processing transactional data. Groups of products sold together well and the corresponding directed association rules are identified an order of magnitude faster than by traditional algorithms.

* New Memory Based Reasoning algorithm based on a combination of Nearest Neighbor and Genetic Algorithms. The new method is used efficiently for classification into multiple categories, as well as prediction of numerical variables.

* Implementation of the DCOM architecture. Now individual PolyAnalyst algorithms can be easily utilized in the form of ActiveX modules in any decision support application. New PolyAnalyst machine learning modules can be easily added and upgraded.

* Support for the analysis of large datasets. The maximum volume of data accepted by the system has been significantly increased and new mechanisms for dealing with large datasets have been implemented.

* Redesigned user interface. The project contents are organized in a Windows-standard tree-like style, while preserving all the best features of the traditional PolyAnalyst interface.

* Dynamic HTML reports for exploration engines. The new interactive reports can be customized, saved, printed, or copied in a standard portable format, and exchanged with external applications

* Mouse-driven Rule Assistant for simple creation of user defined transformation rules.

* Lift and Gain charts for interpreting the results obtained by machine learning algorithms are especially valuable for direct marketing tasks. These features are very useful for measuring the extra profit reaped by a marketer making decisions based on the knowledge discovered by PolyAnalyst.

* New Snake Chart for convenient visual comparison of different data sets.

* New Chart Designer for the development of custom charts and advanced data visualization capabilities

* New PA Scheduler enabling batch process data mining in PolyAnalyst. The user can record a sequence of actions and schedule the created script to be run by PolyAnalyst at a specified time and on the specified datasets.

* Sampling capabilities, allowing random selection of records from a dataset.

* Direct data exchange with Oracle Express and IBM Visual Warehouse.

“By further increasing the power of our leading data mining solution with these features Megaputer has clearly positioned PolyAnalyst 4.0 as the number one modern business solution for data analysis,” says Sergei Arseniev, CEO of Megaputer Intelligence. “The new PolyAnalyst holds all key positions in the quality and versatility of the provided machine learning algorithms, the openness and flexibility of its architecture, and the system user-friendliness. A winning synergy of these features helped Megaputer significantly increase its DM market share during the last year.”

A number of Fortune 100 companies, like Allstate Insurance, Boeing, and DuPont, have already switched to PolyAnalyst 4.0. Our customers are very enthusiastic about the system:

“The unique Find Laws algorithm along with an easy to use interface made PolyAnalyst the only choice for our environment.”

-- James Farkas, Senior Navigation Engineer, The Boeing Company

“Cactus Strategies chose PolyAnalyst because it offered broad analytic functionality and ease of use beyond any other product.”

-- Carl Cozine, Principal, CACTUS Strategies

“The software provides a unique and powerful set of tools for data mining applications, including promotion response analysis, customer segmentation and profiling, and cross-selling analysis.”

-- Raymond Burke, Chair of BA, Kelley School of Business, Indiana 
University

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PolyAnalyst is a multi-strategy data mining solution utilizing the latest achievements in automated Knowledge Discovery in Databases. A broad selection of exploration engines allows the user to predict values of continuous variables, explicitly model complex phenomena, determine the most influential independent variables, solve classification and clustering tasks, and process transactional data. The ability of PolyAnalyst to present the discovered relations in explicit symbolic form has no world analogs. The COM-based design, point-and-click GUI, versatile data manipulation, visualization, and reporting capabilities, minimum of explicit statistics, and a simple interface to various data storage architectures and external applications make PolyAnalyst a very easy-to-use system.

Megaputer provides a complete family of innovative solutions for Knowledge Discovery in Databases, Data Mining, Semantic Text Analysis, and Information Management. The offered solutions help users make better business decisions by revealing knowledge hidden in their database or textbase. Megaputer customers range from Fortune 100 companies, to numerous smaller businesses, to government offices, and to educational institutions.

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     CONTACT: Megaputer Intelligence
              Sergei Ananyan, 812/325-3026
              Fax: 812/339-1646
              s.ananyan@megaputer.com
     URL:     http://www.megaputer.com

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