Analyze This!

In an attempt to provide a more scaleable and easier-to-use predictive analytics solution, SPSS Inc. released its most significant upgrade since acquiring NetGenesis Corp. The predictive analytics developer has made available the latest version of its enterprise Web analytics solution, NetGenesis 6.0, which marks SPSS's first platform upgrade since acquiring NetGenesis during the fourth quarter of 2001. NetGenesis 6.0 enables businesses to analyze their Web sites by measuring the effectiveness of online content and marketing campaigns on online transactions. "This is an extremely significant upgrade for SPSS. We've done a lot of listening to our customers; they wanted a more scaleable import architecture and they wanted us to round out data collection options, which we added through page dotting capabilities [a data collection technique used to track online user behavior] to reduce the amount of Web data you collect and have a much more compact file to import and process," says Peter Caron, director of product management and customer analytics at SPSS. The latest release of NetGenesis focuses on the needs of enterprise customers with complex Web channels. These environments often require analysis of large volumes of data coming from multiple sources. "The trick about Web data is there's a lot more Web data that's collected than just sales," Caron says. "Sales is just the tip of the iceberg. You can also capture every single click each customer made." Caron says this information is akin to someone walking down a supermarket aisle, picking up a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes, and putting it back on the shelf. "That's a lot of data that needs to be analyzed." Another challenge that large and complex Web sites face is they often interact with multiple smaller sites, making data analysis even more daunting, Caron says. To that end, NetGenesis 6.0 enables customers to "set up reports that make more sense," Caron says. Some of the upgrades in the latest version include additional reporting aggregates for complex reports like clickstreams, Caron says. Additionally, the latest version has completely redesigned, scalable import architecture for improved performance, including better utilization of underlying hardware, decreased processing time for data, and better handling of multiple small imports. Pricing begins at $80,000 and scales based on the size and complexity of the deployment. NetGenesis 6.0 supports Windows 2000, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, Sun Solaris 7 and 8, and Oracle8i Standard or Enterprise editions.