A Leader in Advanced Analytics for Desktop and Cloud
Frontline Systems is a leading vendor of advanced predictive and prescriptive analytics software, used to make analytics-powered decisions. Its tools for decisions using mathematical optimization, business rules, Monte Carlo simulation and risk analysis, and data mining, text mining and forecasting are used by 10,000 organizations -- on desktops, servers, and in the cloud. Frontline's customers build decision models using Microsoft Excel for the Web, Windows and Macintosh with its Analytic Solver product family; in programming languages using Frontline's Solver SDK and XLMiner SDK, and in web and mobile apps using its new RASON® Decision Services platform and REST API.
Over 1.2 billion copies of Frontline's Solvers for optimization have been distributed to users, in every copy of Microsoft Office sold since 1990, and Frontline's Excel Solver upgrade products, sold directly to advanced users, are by far the market leaders in their field. In 2010 Frontline won the INFORMS Impact Prize for this work. Frontline has a leadership position in cloud-based analytics, with over two million users, and 2 of the "best 10 Google Sheets add-ons". Frontline was the first vendor to offer business analysts easy access to Big Data in compute clusters running Apache Spark. Frontline Solvers are also the clear #1 choice in MBA programs around the world, used by over 500,000 students, covered in over 35 textbooks, and the exclusive software used in several market-leading textbooks.
Frontline's corporate customers -- including over 1,100 firms with $1 billion revenue and up -- are global leaders in many industries including financial services, aerospace, automotive, telecommunications, utilities, transportation, and manufacturing, as well as commercial, government, and academic research centers. Its individual users, often business analysts and managers, build data mining, simulation- and optimization-based decision models, faster and with less effort than with other software, usually without any programming. These models are used to analyze risk and decide how to best allocate scarce resources - money, equipment, and people - often yielding savings of millions of dollars.
Analytics Technology Leadership
With a long history of "firsts" in analytic software, Frontline is widely regarded as a technology leader -- especially today in cloud-based decision management or "digital decisioning" systems. During its 30-year history, Frontline was among the first to apply genetic and evolutionary algorithms to spreadsheet models, and to use GPUs in evolutionary algorithms, first to deliver algebraic "convexity testing" for analytic models, and first to deliver commercial software using robust optimization, as well as classical stochastic programming and simulation optimization methods. The company is also a technology leader in data and text mining, risk modeling, and global optimization.
Cloud-based Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics
Frontline's Analytic Solver Cloud version, usable through a browser or in desktop Excel for Windows or Mac, offers business analysts a familiar environment with point-and-click tools to create predictive and prescriptive analytics models themselves, without needing expert data scientists or programmers – yet taking advantage of the full spectrum of analytic methods, from DMN-compatible business rules and decision tables, to forecasting, data mining and machine learning, to simulation for managing uncertainty and risk, and optimization to coordinate many decisions at once. Models created this way are highly reusable -- not just in Excel, but as "instant decision services" usable in Microsoft Power BI, Power Apps and Power Automate, and embedded in any custom application using Frontline's REST APIs and server-side SDKs.
RASON® Modeling and REST API
Frontline's RASON Decision Services is a complete platform for deploying, managing and governing, and monitoring use of analytics-powered decisions. It enables business analysts, IT pros and developers to work together on analytic models, and deploy them far more easily for use throughout an organization. RASON -- RESTful Analytic Solver® Object Notation -- is a high-level modeling language for mathematical optimization, business rules, Monte Carlo simulation and risk analysis, and data mining, text mining and forecasting, embedded in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). RASON models can be solved via simple REST API calls to a powerful cloud-based server that organizations can use on a subscription basis. For server- and desktop-based applications, RASON models can be solved using Frontline's Solver SDK (below).
Powerful SDK Tools for Developers
Frontline Systems offers powerful SDK tools to allow developers to rapidly prototype and deploy models outside Excel on desktops, servers, or in the cloud. Solver SDK users can easily define models in their choice of object-oriented programming languages; define models in Excel and use them to solve problems on servers without Excel; or define models in Frontline's new RASON modeling language -- using any of four built-in solvers or eight plug-in Solver Engines that integrate the world's best optimizers from other vendors. XLMiner SDK users can use a powerful, high-level API for to quickly create predictive analytics, using a wide range of forecasting, data mining, and text mining algorithms.
Training and Support Services
Frontline helps business analysts learn to use advanced analytics in many ways -- from in-product Wizards and contextual Help to its Solver.Academy self-paced online courses. Frontline's technical support and consulting assistance, handling thousands of support tickets per month with an average 12-hour response time and 90% user satisfaction rating, is highly regarded in the industry. With our help, Excel users and programmers around the world have built highly successful applications of optimization, often in record time. We're proud of our track record of helping our customers -- most of whom have no formal training in operations research or management science -- to achieve cost savings and profit improvements of millions of dollars.
The #1 Choice Among MBA Programs Worldwide
Frontline Solvers are also the clear #1 choice in MBA programs around the world, used by over 500,000 students, featured in over 45 textbooks, and the exclusive software used in several market-leading textbooks. With Analytic Solver Platform for Education, professors have one integrated tool they can use to teach data mining and predictive analytics, optimization, simulation, and decision analysis, saving classroom time and enhancing the student learning experience. Frontline Systems also offers its full commercial solvers at significant discounts and comprehensive support for both professors and their universitys' IT departments.
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