Massively parallel data mining specialist WhiteCross Systems Ltd has teamed up with Canadian Angoss Software International Inc in a deal which will add an enhanced user interface to WhiteCross’ HeatSeeker data mining tool, and open up Angoss’s new KnowledgeStudio software to analysis on very large databases. KnowledgeStudio also gives WhiteCross an object-oriented framework through which it will incorporate additional third party business intelligence software, including neural networks and OLAP online analytical processing tools. WhiteCross has always claimed to focus on its server engine, which uses the company’s proprietary relational database, optimized to standard SQL queries run on its massively parallel hardware (CI No 3,104), rather than front-end analysis tools. Chief executive Chris Barfield says the company is committed to integrating best of breed software to offer the full range of data exploration and business intelligence software. Angoss president John Mangold said for its part, Angoss was looking to get away from extract technologies where an extract or sample of the database is taken and analyzed, so as not to overload workstation-based systems. Customers increasingly want to maximize their investments in large datawarehouses, by running data mining and business intelligence queries on the whole data, rather than sampled extracts, Mangold says. WhiteCross and Angoss are jointly developing the new software, which will be sold by WhiteCross as part of its high end data exploration offering. The company expects it to be available in the middle of next year, and hopes to time its release to coincide with the launch of its new massively parallel hardware, which will use ‘commodity chips’ instead of the Inmos transputer (CI No 3,238). Mangold says the WhiteCross-optimized software will form one of a suite of high performance relational database data mining drivers that Angoss will be offering. It has already announced a deal with Tandem Computers Inc (CI No 3,207), under which Tandem will incorporate Angoss data mining tools in its NonStop SQL/MX-based DMS Data Mining Server engine, and Mangold says there will be several more announcements to follow.
