NetIQ Offers New Analytics Applications

NetIQ

The San Jose, Calif.-based vendor plans to unveil WebTrends Intelligence Suite 4.0, the newest version of the product suite formerly known as CommerceTrends. The Intelligence Suite analyzes and reports on Web site users' activities, tracking information such as the number of site visitors and which content visitors browsed.

The suite can track visitors anonymously or as individuals if they provide personal information to the Web site.

Version 4.0 includes performance improvements, processing Web data up to five times faster than previous editions, said Barry Parshall, group product manager at NetIQ.

It also includes WebTrends Report Designer, a component that enables solution providers and their customers to customize their reports. The suite still includes the hundreds of preconfigured reports available in the previous edition, Parshall said.

In addition, the upgrade includes features that improve the suite's integration with CRM and e-commerce applications such as Siebel Call Center, Parshall said.

ZAAZ, a Seattle-based Web design and consulting firm, has built a separate practice centered on Web analytics, helping customers improve their site's return on investment by saving money and procuring more sales leads, said Jason Burby, director of Web analytics at ZAAZ.

After working with ZAAZ, one large financial institution was able to drive more customers to put service requests through its Web site rather than calling in to customer service representatives, saving the client $250,000 per month, said Burby.

The bulk of ZAAZ's clients use NetIQ's WebTrends products to analyze site traffic, Burby said.

Pricing for WebTrends Intelligence Suite 4.0 starts at $30,000.

NetIQ also plans to introduce Quadstone for WebTrends, an add-on product that integrates its Intelligence Suite with the predictive data mining software from Quadstone, Boston.

"It can discover trends and patterns in your data that you didn't know existed," said Parshall.

NetIQ last week named Charles Boesenberg as its new president and CEO, replacing co-founder Ching-Fa Hwang.

"I hope what the channel sees is that we [will put even more focus on ease of use, ease of implementation, filling product holes, making it easy for our channel partners and our support team to support their customers," said Boesenberg.

Hwang, who has served as president and CEO since 1995, said he is retiring from the day-to-day operations of the infrastructure management software vendor but will maintain an active role in the business by becoming chairman of the board.

"Generally speaking, I think this is a good move because they've completely revamped their business model," said Heath Tow, account executive at Subject, Wills and Co., a systems integrator in Oakbrook, Ill. "To grow at the rate shareholders are looking to them for, they have to get into new markets."