IBM adds data mining to DB2

NEWS IBM executives said they will beat database software maker Oracle in building the analysis software into its database as the company will ship its DB2 by the end of March. Oracle plans to release its integrated 9i database before June. IBM DB2 Intelligent Miner Scoring allows businesses to make faster decisions by driving data mining intelligence to customer, supplier and employee information. Jeff Jones, senior program manager at IBM Data Management Solutions, said the Intelligent Miner Scoring services enable companies to mine data for predictive modeling, such as customer buying behavior. The technology will allow an ecommerce website to immediately analyse what a web surfer is purchasing, predict other items that the buyer may be interested in and offer those other items to the buyer. Jones also said IBM will ship a cartridge for extending scoring services to Oracle databases. In addition, Jones said to make data mining more useful, IBM is working with a group of vendors to establish a standard, PMML (predictive model markup language), based on XML. Gartner analyst Howard Dressner said the database vendors are finally starting to get it and are adding functionality to help end users employ the data. "By putting the intelligence close to the data," he said, "users, when they interact with these engines, can get more insight out of the data."