As companies look to analyse their e-business data, developers are rolling out new analytic software and services to meet that demand.
Among the latest are Ardent Software Inc. and SAS Institute, both of which said last week they are readying new software aimed at e-business analytics and blending Web clickstream log files with back- and front-office data.
SAS and Ardent are also launching new services divisions specific to e-business analytics. Oracle did the same last week for its Intelligent Webhouse initiative, a software suite it launched last year.
"There's a big need across the board for this sort of analytics in any type of business," said Mario Perkins, a managing partner at Qualex Consulting Services, in Apex, NC "There's a terrific opportunity to expand business knowledge and return on investment. Businesses are understanding the value in this volume of data and how it needs to be melted down into more useful information that provides knowledge of their customers."
This week, Ardent, of Westboro, will announce options for its DataStage data transformation and movement tool aimed at e-business. Ardent's Click Pack, scheduled to ship this quarter, will provide native reads of clickstream data residing on Microsoft, Sun-Netscape Alliance and Apache Web servers. The software will support Internet Messaging Access Protocol, Post Office Protocol 3 and SMTP, smoothing the way to integrate e-mail with other data.
Click Pack also adds support for Perl, the scripting language widely used on the Internet, sparing developers tedious hand coding.
Another option, XML Pack, provides both read and write capabilities for Extensible Markup Language. A separate plug-in for IBM's MQSeries messaging software will enhance real-time data distribution, Ardent officials said.
Finally, Ardent, which is in the process of being acquired by Informix, is boosting Data Stage with support for Linux and XML metadata.
Meanwhile, data warehousing heavyweight SAS, in Cary, NC, will spruce up its technology later this quarter with a bundle aimed at e-business analytics.
A new package, code-named e-Discovery, will marry SAS' Enter prise Miner data mining software, Warehouse Administrator; data integration tools; and a new product called Web Hound for a high-end solution for integrating clickstream with traditional data in an SAS analytic infrastructure, officials said.
Web Hound, which provides data movement as well as reporting and analysis through SAS' MDDB online analytical processing server, will also be available separately.
