Anyone used Predixion? Data Mining in the Cloud?

The whole cloud thing is really catching on, and from what I can tell, Predixion is the first in it's class.  Curious if anyone here has used Predixion and how it compares to traditional PowerPivot and data mining.  I'm looking for pro's and con's about it and experiences.  I'm currently looking at it for a solution to "infastructure-less" personal BI for my clients.

Are there other products like it?  I assumed there were other "hosted model" solutions out there, maybe not cloud solutions but a hosted model solution.

Any information is welcomed and I'm eager to learn more about it.

I've used Predixion and like it a lot (I've blogged about it too, for example here: http://cwebbbi.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/data-mining-sqlbits-registration-data-with-predixion-insight/). I'm not aware of any other products like it, but then again I'm not a traditional data miner - which is in fact the whole point of the product, since it allows data mining to be done by people without a background in statistics and hard-core number crunching.

One thing to be careful of is the definition of 'data mining'. Predixion is data mining in the strict sense of the term - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining - unlike tools like PowerPivot, which are tools for slicing, dicing and exploring your data. Predixion and PowerPivot are complementary and work well together, in fact. If all you need is the ability to do reporting, pivot tables, graphs, simple calculations and so on then Predixion wouldn't be the main tool you'd be looking at.

HTH,

Chris

I agree with all Chris Webb's comments.

Predixion does data mining in the cloud using data provided by PowerPivot or Excel. (There is also an on premise model.)

Predixion is very easy to use. It finds the "Stories" in data that would otherwise take a long time to find using traditional BI methods. Find groups or segments of customers for more effective marketing, market basket analysis for cross and upselling, customers who are likely to respond to a marketing offer etc.

I've use it to analyse retail and wholesale data and got interesting insights. Using PowerPivot, any amount of data can be quickly uploaded and analysed.

There are other products that do the same job, for example SAS and SPSS, but they cost many, many times more than Predixion.

Geoff

Thanks a lot guys, this is very helpful information. 

Hi!

Predixion has huge capabilities and also has the new version of Microsoft Data Mining AddIn. Microsoft in my personal opinion (not official) left the investment in Data Mining field.

Let me know witch type of data mining tasks are you planning to apply!

Regards,

Pedro

www.pedrocdg.blogspot.com

It's been a while since this post has had any activity, but I'm curious if anyone has checked out the MSFT BI Labs site and particularly:  http://www.microsoft.com/bi/en-us/Community/BILabs/Pages/DataMiningInTheCloud.aspx

Chris, I can't remember but I believe I ran across it on your blog.