Where Intelligent Technology Meets the Real World
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While glancing through the Fall 2002 Comdex Program (November
18-22),
I could not help noticing how unexciting and predictable the
show topics were. With the sliding economy and companies financially
strapped, it is not surprising to see some focus on corporate
business fundamentals such as IT Management, Web Services, Storage,
Security, eMobility, and technical arenas such as Java, .Net,
Windows, and so on. However, with the possible exception of
Business Intelligence, there is little emphasis on intelligent
technologies. Unfortunately, this is a common occurrence during
tight economies - corporations focus more on survival and less
on gaining market share or using technology to radically improve
processes. At the very time that companies should be leveraging
technology to improve their bottom line they ignore the opportunity.
Smart companies realize this and use intelligent technologies
during the downturns to improve their tools, processes, and
knowledge - enabling them to gain market share as the economy
recovers - an important corporate advantage. Successful companies
do not advertise this fact - they do not want their competition
using this against them during the next downturn.
Business Rules, one intelligent technology that is very
successful, is really
just a vertical application of expert systems for knowledge
management. Embraced as a crucial approach to strategic planning
by major corporations and vendors such as IBM, American Express,
Charles Schwabb, as well as government organizations, Business
Rules have become mainstream. The primary premise of many current
business rule systems is that the user of the critical business
knowledge, the domain experts, maintains the knowledge. In traditional
systems, the programmers embed the knowledge in the programs
so only programmers can make changes. These rule based concepts
of knowledge management are right out of expert systems 101.
There are numerous opportunities for intelligent technologies
to improve a
corporation's bottom line during these economic down-turns.
Expert system technology is a powerful tool, when applied properly.
It can capture the fundamental expertise of those leaving a
company or changing assignments due to limited corporate resources.
For example, capturing an experienced HR person's knowledge
of the corporate HR rules and guidelines frees that person up
for other assignments. It can also provide guidance to new HR
candidates, when the economy does turn around. The captured
knowledge in turn can man the first level of support at customer
support or interface centers. Other possible uses of this technology
is supplying benefit information to employees, product information
to prospective clients, or product support - many questions
can be answered at this first level of support, whether using
web or voice as the interface protocol. In this issue, we examine
an expert system used in intelligent instruction.
This issue also has a PC AI exclusive. Don Barker, a long-time
writer
and columnist for PC AI, has spent the past two years researching
the Microsoft Research Division (MRD), with Microsoft's support
and encouragement, in preparation for a number of articles and
possible book on the history and accomplishments of MRD. This
opportunity is afforded very few writers and we are excited
to have one of the first articles resulting from Don's research.
Microsoft has been collecting some of the best AI researchers
and developers in a variety of AI related fields and many are
now employed in the MRD. In addition, the timing could not be
better as Microsoft is about to deploy this machine translation
system, the accumulation of two decades of research, later this
year.
Terry Hengl
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Publisher
Terry Hengl
Senior Editor
Don Barker
Webmaster
Ilana Marks
Columnists/Editors
Will Dwinnell
Joseph Schmuller
Contributors
Don Barker
Barry Brosch
Dustin Huntington
M. Alroy Mascrenghe
Jeffry D. Panici
R. Martin Spencer
Paul F. Troncone
Layout and Typography
Michael Wiederhold
Graphic Design and Illustration
Laurens Watson
Vice President of Marketing
Robin Okun
Editorial Assistant
Casper Goldberg
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