ShowCase Corporation Shipping STRATEGY 3.5

ShowCase Corporation, a leading provider of Enterprise Intelligence solutions, announced that it has begun shipping ShowCase STRATEGY 3.5. The enhanced STRATEGY integrated suite of data warehousing tools enables companies to capitalize on their existing software investments and achieve maximum return on their business intelligence investments.

When combined with a customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM) or financial management solution, STRATEGY 3.5 will enable companies to embark on major initiatives and drive top-line revenue growth by giving them the ability, functionality and support to anticipate and model changes within their business environment, without having to rely heavily on IT support.

"STRATEGY 3.5 gives end users the power to access and explore detailed information `their way' within their specific areas of the business, without having to rely on IT support," says Wayne Roen, Director of Product Management. "In addition, IT groups benefit from being able to empower their end-users by delivering applications and detailed information faster while leveraging the open and scalable AS/400 platform."

New Features of STRATEGY 3.5

ShowCase STRATEGY 3.5 features Essbase/400 and NT as its flagship offerings and incorporates Hyperion's Essbase 6.0. STRATEGY Essbase is a multidimensional database solution that allows companies to empower large numbers of end-users to simultaneously analyze and share data related to the performance indicators for their business. It also provides corporations with strategic and competitive advantage by allowing them to extend their transactional data - either from an ERP solution or generated in-house - beyond ad hoc querying and reporting to a more dynamic operational analysis. The upgrade also marks the debut of ShowCase NT offerings, features and capabilities within the STRATEGY product line, allowing IT managers to better align their organizations' strategic plans and goals with the latest technology. New features include:

• Expanded Application Breadth: New attributes for dynamically calculated dimensions capture more descriptive information without increasing the application size and/or load times. This creates a much stronger platform for new and existing applications that require more detailed analysis. For example, a retailer may need sales and marketing analysis in conjunction with e-business and CRM analytics.
• Performance and Scalability: The performance and scalability of Essbase 6.0 is ideally suited for large Web-based application deployments. Essbase 6.0 also allows more applications and users to run on a single server and new support for cross-application calculations enables the sharing of common data. Calculations can reference information in other "multi-cube" applications (e.g. tax rates, unit costs, labor rates, currencies), improving scalability because the information no longer needs to be stored with each application.
• Sophisticated Analytics: Built-in forecasting and trending functions feature advanced profitability calculations for allocations and additional statistical functions and require less dependence on client software. These new functions are ideal for sophisticated sales forecasting and other demand-planning applications. Advanced profitability calculations perform allocations for single or multiple dimensions and additional statistical functions for more advanced calculations. The new Essbase Query Designer provides greater ease of use, with improved navigation and selection interface for Excel users, allowing them to perform more sophisticated analysis.
• ShowCase STRATEGY Warehouse Builder Integration: Users can submit Essbase NT load plans directly from ShowCase STRATEGY Warehouse Builder to Essbase on the NT platform.
• Report Generation against Microsoft SQL Server: Users can submit ShowCase STRATEGY Query/Reports against Microsoft SQL Server simply by selecting a different source.

Pricing and Availability

ShowCase STRATEGY 3.5 is available immediately in the United States and the U.K. Pricing for STRATEGY with Essbase starts at $25,000.

About ShowCase STRATEGY

ShowCase STRATEGY provides business users and AS/400 IT professionals with a complete solution for Enterprise Intelligence. From extraction and transformation of data from AS/400 operational systems, such as e-commerce applications and ERP systems - through loading data into the warehouse and keeping it refreshed through automated scheduling - STRATEGY provides IT professionals with an integrated suite of data warehousing tools. For business users, STRATEGY provides an integrated suite of ad hoc query and reporting tools, Web-based enterprise reporting, and OLAP-based analytic application solutions.

About ShowCase Corporation

ShowCase provides Enterprise Intelligence solutions to help companies discover and seize business opportunities in an evolving global marketplace. We offer the first integrated web content management and business intelligence solution to help companies solve their strategic business information needs. Through a worldwide team, ShowCase offers reporting and analytic solutions in areas such as financial management and customer relationship management (CRM). For more information, visit the ShowCase Web site at www.showcasecorp.com.

Contact ShowCase Corporation, Mary Ellen Hartigan, 847-685-6557, mhartigan@showcasecorp.com.