Dotplot provides data mining, statistics, text mining and predictive analytics tools in an integrated, highly graphical cloud based environment. All that is needed to use dotplot is a browser. Resulting models can be integrated with other applications via web services using SOAP and REST protocols. Dig a little deeper and dotplot is actually a much needed graphical front end to R and Weka functions. This accounts for the very large number of functions supported and the broad capability.
While dotplot provides an extremely easy to use interface it supports some very advanced functionality, and particularly the ability to pass parameters from one function to another (as well as data sets). Many parameters are hidden from novice users, but can be revealed for experts (some R functions have up to 100 parameters). For larger organizations wishing to deploy models within the enterprise dotplot provides an on-premise execution engine.
In the pipeline are model building wizards, visualization tools and apps. The wizards will help in the construction of common models and the visualization tools with data presentation. The apps are solutions created by dotplot or by dotplot users, and the active dotplot community is not only a support and learning environment, but a source of analytics solutions which will eventually be offered through an App Store.
Dotplot is positioned as a cheaper alternative to large products such as SPSS and SAS. For many users this will be the case, but dotplot does not compete with the large scale implementations of such products in large corporations. In fact this is not the target market, and dotplot has been created to bring practical analytics to both medium and large organizations.
The company was founded in 2012 and is based in Munich, Germany. The vision of the CEO is that dotplot should become a standard graphical interface to R, and that a large community of users will create many off-the-shelf analytics solutions in the same way that R users have created hundreds of analytics tools as an extension to R.
Pricing is modest and even includes a free Personal subscription with limitations on the functions available, data size and cpu usage. The Premium service comes in at a modest $59 per month and provides unlimited resources (except for storage at 100 GB) and support. For larger organizations enterprise deals are available with considerable discounts on the flat rate.
In summary dotplot will be one of the most cost effective statistical analysis and data mining solutions for a large population of users, and the free subscription provides a good opportunity to try it out.