Greetings to all and apologies for any cross-postings. If you know of anyone else who could benefit from this announcement please forward to them. Best regards and good luck to everyone, Michael O'Connell. BioConductor Project and Insightful Corp. Collaboration Announcement This week, Insightful Corporation announced the availability of S+ArrayAnalyzer version 2.0, an updated module for S-PLUS based on collaboration with the BioConductor Project - a widely-used open source and open development software project for the analysis and comprehension of genomic data. The software will be described in a free 1 hour public web seminar on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2004 at 11:30 AM EST / 8:30 AM PST entitled: Using S+ArrayAnalyzer 2.0 to Improve Gene Expression Analysis and Deploy Best Practices You can register for this event at http://www.insightful.com/news_events/webcasts/pharm04/arrayanalyzer.a sp The collaboration between Insightful and BioConductor delivers benefits to commercial and academic researchers analyzing high-throughput assay data and microarray experiments: - S+ArrayAnalyzer S+AA embraces and extends the Bioconductor 1.4 object model so that both offerings share a common framework. This allows researchers in the field to create new software methods and algorithms for two widely-used software platforms using a single underlying object model and to use the same syntax for future collaborative research. - S+ArrayAnalyzer adds many features that can improve productivity for users, such as installers, more data access options, a guided-workflow interface, interactive graphics with hyperlinked annotation and Web deployment of applications. - S+ArrayAnalyzer is a commercially supported product from Insightful, a long-established vendor with fully staffed tech support, training, and consulting. This collaboration between Insightful and the BioConductor Group has brought the expertise of the open-source and research communities and the rigorous development environment of the commercial software world together. Through programs such as sponsorship of a graduate student in the BioConductor project, and feedback from its professional Quality Assurance testing team, Insightful's participation in this collaboration has served to improve the availability and reliability of microarray analysis software for both the academic research and commercial user. In addition, through its relationships with customers in commercial drug discovery and awareness of their unique needs, Insightful has helped drive continued advancements and innovation in both the open source and commercial offerings: for example, a new differential expression library (lpe), written by Insightful and the University of Virginia, has been ported to R and included in both S+ArrayAnalyzer and Bioconductor v1.4. "The BioConductor-Insightful collaboration helps ensure the distribution and high-level end-user support of key bioinformatics tools to the broadest possible population of researchers," said spokespeople for The BioConductor Project. "BioConductor is an academic project focused on creation and distribution of high-quality open source statistical and computational methods and software for bioinformatics, while Insightful has over a decade of experience in user interface design, documentation, and user support for statistical computing. The results of this collaboration should benefit researchers in both commercial and non-profit organizations." "Our collaboration with BioConductor is a blueprint for how Insightful can work with the open source community to bring highly innovative and productive data analysis applications to the widest possible user base," said Jeff Coombs, CEO of Insightful. "This cooperation improves the analytic solutions available to our common base of S programmers and the non- statisticians who benefit from using applications developed with S-PLUS and R." S+ArrayAnalyzer is available now with pricing for commercial and academic organizations available by calling (800)569-0123 x479, or via email at S-PLUS.pharma@insightful.com ABOUT BIOCONDUCTOR BioConductor is an academic project focused on creation and distribution of high-quality open source statistical and computational methods and software for bioinformatics. It includes contributions to the management and analysis of cDNA and oligonucleotide microarray and SAGE platforms, to the structure and flexible manipulation of genomic annotation data, and to the computational infrastructure required for effective bioinformatics, including GUI component libraries, novel structures and algorithms for networks and graphical systems, and improvements to the R language, especially in the domain of programmatic verification, documentation and distribution of software packages. BioConductor is widely used by investigators on many different platforms and is a basis for training in statistical genomics and bioinformatics in a number of prominent universities on four continents. Spokespeople for the BioConductor Project: S. Dudoit, Division of Biostatistics, University of California, Berkeley; R.A. Irizarry, Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University; V.J. Carey, Harvard Medical School; R. Gentleman, Harvard School of Public Health. ABOUT INSIGHTFUL Insightful Corporation (NASDAQ:IFUL) provides enterprises with scalable data analysis solutions that drive better decisions faster by revealing patterns, trends and relationships. The company is a leading supplier of software and services for statistical data analysis, data mining and knowledge access enabling clients to gain intelligence from numeric and text data. Insightful products include S-PLUS?, Insightful Miner, S-PLUS Server? and InFact?. Insightful consulting services provide specialized expertise and proven processes for the design, development and deployment of customized solutions. The company has been delivering industry-leading, high-ROI solutions for 17 years to thousands of companies in financial services, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, telecommunications, manufacturing, plus government and research institutions. Headquartered in Seattle, Insightful has offices in New York City, North Carolina, France, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, with distributors around the world. For more information, visit www.insightful.com, email info@insightful.com or call 1-800-569-0123.