The OLAP Report developed the ranking for Hyperion Solutions through a combination of the previous rankings for Hyperion Software and Arbor Software. Prior to the launch of Hyperion Solutions, The OLAP Report had predicted that no single vendor would dominate the OLAP market within the next two years. The latest edition of the OLAP Report ranks Hyperion Solutions as the dominant player. This company's Knowledge Miner was being highlighted as essential software to make sense of the selected data and to design the models required by clients. Due to the immense storage capacity of databases, it is impossible to effectively use all the stored data by simply searching individual records.
Neural networks enable the exploration of complex relationships that exist in corporate databases.
By analysing these relationships, models can be designed to assist forecasting and planning. Knowledge Miner was of interest to me because it displayed some unique features, which had been developed in-house. In use Knowledge Miner was shown to be extremely quick in training and very accurate in forecasting. It was also claimed that the Neural Networks Group's software will allow consultants to train networks without the supervision required with traditional neural networks. Sybase were exhibiting their product line-up and also broadcasting the message that 'Data Warehouses Must Not Dictate The Business Model'.