Oracle launches Intelligent Webhouse initiative to analyse e-commerce data
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19 1999 7:42 AM EST
NOV 19, 1999, M2 Communications - Oracle, the number one choice in e-business, has unveiled new products to help ".com" companies and e-businesses analyse and leverage e-commerce data for targeted customer campaigns. The Intelligent Webhouse initiative helps companies use online customer interaction data to analyse buying patterns, demographics, preferences and forecasts. Combined with existing customer data from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications as well as external data sources, Oracle's Intelligent Webhouse delivers the insight companies need to differentiate their service and product offerings and enable personalised online shopping experiences required to capture market share.
The Oracle Warehouse technology is already used by the world's top e-commerce sites, such as CDNow, Cisco, MatchLogic and More.com, to achieve a heightened understanding of customer behaviour and buying patterns. The Intelligent Webhouse brings additional tools to facilitate the analysis of online customer data and click streams. These analyses are delivered as XML-based reports and drill downs, which can be accessed on a corporate intranet or portal using a browser. By bringing together a variety of information sources, the webhouse generates additional revenue opportunities and helps companies serve their customers by implementing 1:1 marketing.
"With new online retailers entering the fray on a daily basis, intelligent webhousing is not an option - it is a requirement. It has become critical for companies to improve the collection and analysis of customer data if they are to achieve and retain success in the e-business world," said Chris Ward, Business Intelligence marketing manager, Oracle UK. "Oracle is the only company that can provide the technology and services required to answer the questions that will make today's e-business successful."
Intelligent webhouses can help e-businesses answer important market and customer questions to differentiate their products and services from the other '.com' companies, such as: Who is visiting and buying from the web site? What percentage of visits result in a sale? Who are the most profitable customers? How effective are the loyalty programs? What are the cross-selling and up-selling opportunities? What ads and banners should be displayed?
New Software Extends Oracle Warehouse for Intelligent Webhousing
The Intelligent Webhouse initiative incorporates existing technologies from the Oracle Warehouse family of products, which are built on the scalable Oracle 8i Internet database and Oracle's Express Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) server. Oracle Warehouse also includes a variety of reporting, query, analysis and data mining tools that can be used to analyse e-business data. New products announced or previewed today include:
Internet Data Mining: Darwin 3.6 will be the newest version of Oracle's data mining suite, originally acquired in June 1999. Darwin data mining software uses mathematical algorithms for the construction of predictive models about customer behaviour. With its new clustering feature, Darwin can now achieve more accurate predictive models by analysing much larger data sets, which is essential for identifying customer trends and patterns associated with large e-commerce sites. An additional Darwin 3.6 feature is database write-back integration or the ability to publish webhousing results to the Oracle database. Darwin users will now be able to leverage any Oracle product (e.g. Oracle Reports 6i, Oracle Express, Oracle Discover 3i, etc.) to view, subset or target hot customers. Darwin 3.6 is expected to ship in late December 1999.
XML-based Reporting: Oracle Reports 6i is a database reporting tool that generates pre-defined reports about transactional data. The new Oracle Reports 6i, based on the XML standard, will enable users to create customised reports on the fly, which are based on transactional or online interaction data. The reports can then be pushed into a WebDB home page or portal site where anyone in the organisation can view the new information via a web browser. Oracle Reports 6i, which is currently in the last stages of beta testing, will be widely available in the first quarter of 2000.
Dynamic Web-based Query and Analysis: Oracle Discoverer 3i is an ad-hoc query and analysis tool used to identify associations by viewing data in various dimensions. The new Discoverer 3i to be released in beta next month, simplifies the query creation process by supplying a wizard to pre-build queries through a web browser. In addition, users can create and publish workbooks over the Web, which provides users at all levels of an organisation immediate, secure access to critical business.
Advanced Analytical Applications: Oracle Express 6.3 OLAP Tools include Oracle Express Objects, Oracle Express Analyzer, and Oracle Express Web Publisher. Used by developers to rapidly create custom analytical applications, the latest version of Express OLAP tools complements the recently announced Oracle Express Server 6.3 by featuring improved usability, productivity enhancements, state-of-the-art editing and debugging capabilities, support for multi-developer applications, and a new application packaging and deployment wizard. Express Analyzer 6.3 and Express Web Publisher 6.3 provide a complete solution for end users to perform sophisticated analysis and share results throughout the organisation using a standard web browser.
Customer Data Quality: Oracle recently announced an agreement to acquire Carleton Corp., an early innovator of mainframe data extraction and data quality software. Carleton's software, when integrated into Oracle's Intelligent Webhouse, will provide a consistent, consolidated view of customer data. The powerful name and address cleansing, and validation capabilities identify unique customers and households, which is imperative in the creation of profitable targeted marketing campaigns.
"Webhousing relies on nice, clean customer data, no duplicates, etc., which is key to world class customer self-service and web site personalisation, two of the hottest application areas in e-business," said Norma Schroder, senior analyst at Dataquest in San Jose, Calif. "Dataquest believes Oracle is making the right moves to capitalise on the surging webhousing market opportunity."
Oracle Corporation is the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the world's second largest independent software company. With annual revenues of more than $9.1 billion, the company offers its database, tools and application products, along with related consulting, education, and support services, in more than 145 countries around the world.
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