Microsoft has discovered both Data Mining and Knowledge Management (KM) and is proceeding with data mining as it did with OLAP-developing an extension to the OLE DB specification to support data mining functionality. According to Bob Muglia in a keynote speech at TechEd 99, Microsoft's Exchange group is driving the KM effort. Key features of the KM vision include a digital dashboard that provides customized views of information ranging from email to product sales to Web sites. The KM vision also includes Web Store, part of the next release of Exchange (code named Platinum, which is now in beta), which provides access to information from Web, file and collaborative servers, and transactional systems; and a new Team Productivity application for Back Office 4.5. Team Productivity promises to be Microsoft's first serious foray into the message-based collaboration and KM markets. Team Productivity will ship with several out-of-the-box applications, including Team Documents using Office 2000 Server Extensions, several collaborative applications (e.g., team calendar, contacts, discussions, and FAQs based on Exchange Server), and a SQL Server-based tracking template.
