Spotfire Inc, the leading provider of Web-enabled decision analytics applications, announced the release of its third generation of gene expression analysis software, Spotfire Array Explorer. This latest version of Spotfire Array Explorer is fully integrated with the Spotfire.net web-based decision analytics platform and provides researchers with four types of capabilities key to effective gene expression analysis. These include: links to internal genomics data sources and those of key content and instrumentation providers, powerful software for gene expression analysis, a Web environment, and the ability to collaborate with colleagues in the discovery process.

For over two years, Spotfire Array Explorer has played an integral role in genomics research by enabling scientists at institutions worldwide to access information wherever it resides, visually analyse that data, and share critical findings with colleagues to accelerate technical decision-making and maximize the value of human genome data.

"Spotfire Array Explorer incorporates powerful gene expression analysis capabilities into an easy-to-use, Web application," said Mike Newbauer, group leader, Applied Genomics at Bristol Myers Squibb. "This extensible architecture will enable our scientists to have seamless access to a broad set of genomics and proteomics databases and to take advantage of the immediate deployment of new functionality to accelerate our decision-making process."

"The demand for our decision analytics applications has been explosive," said Bill Ladd, director of bioinformatics at Spotfire, Inc. "Spotfire is used at all of the top 25 leading pharmaceutical companies and 120 of the top biotechnology companies worldwide. This next generation of Spotfire Array Explorer delivers the powerful functionality bioinformatics professionals need to move research forward. Spotfire Array Explorer 3.0 is the only Web-based gene expression analysis application that empowers individuals to make more informed decisions and accelerates the discovery process for the company as a whole."

Spotfire Array Explorer provides researchers with immediate, easy access to the broadest collection of proteomics and genomics data sources available today. It is integrated with the solutions offered by industry-leading content and instrumentation companies, including Affymetrix, Genomics Solutions, Incyte Genomics, Molecular Dynamics, PPGx, and Proteome. It also links to GeneCards, KEGG, SwissProt, NCBI's Genbank, OMIM and Entrez databases.

In addition, the product supports microarray technology with a host of analytical and data visualization methods, and provides researchers with a highly interactive, graphical environment that enables them to reduce large amounts of data into clusters of similar-behaving groups and fully explore the data. Further, it allows them to identify therapeutic targets and fail bad compounds and targets early.

Spotfire Array Explorer is delivered over the Web, enabling customer IT and informatics personnel to deploy new capabilities to researchers more quickly than the traditional deployment of software a desktop at a time. They can also use Spotfire's development platform to add new functions and databases on their own. Spotfire's Professional Services group can also configure genomics workspaces that incorporate a company's specific analytical methods, best practices, and workflows.