Types of Forecasting Software

Yurkiewicz (2008, 2010, 2012) groups the forecasting software into three categories as follows  

Automatic software These are designated stand alone programs and may cost thousands of dollars. The user does not have to be proficient in forecasting. The soffware asks fhe user to enter the time series data. It selects the appropriate method based on the analysis of the data and recommends a forecasting method. It also computes the optimal values of fhe parameters (e.g., smoothing constants a, P, and y for Winters method) using forecast errors. It then 

Semi-automatic software These are moderately priced but they require the user to have some basic knowledge of forecasting principles and fechniques. Here, fhe user has to select an appropriate forecasting technique based on the analysis of time series data. The software will then compute the optimal parameters for the chosen method using some measure of forecasf error. It also gives the forecasts and all the statistics, such as MAD, MAPE, MSE, Bias, etc. The software makes no recommendation as to which forecasting technique is appropriate for the given data. 

A partial list of forecasting software discussed by Yurkiewicz (2012) is given below  

A stand alone leading forecasting software for large problems. (Cost 1300) 

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