VISIONYZE WEB-ENABLES ITS LEADING ANALYTIC APPS

Visionyze.com, a division of Speedware Corporation and a leading provider of global analytic applications and business intelligence solutions, announced the delivery of its next generation of analytic technology. With the development of this new technology, Visionyze aims to provide decision-makers access to important business information and analysis tools via the Web.

Analytics Architected for the Web

Visionyze's new e-business knowledge toolkit, code-named Picasso, provides organizations with a simple way to create, deploy and maintain sophisticated, graphical, analytic applications for the Web. Picasso encompasses all the query, analysis and reporting capabilities required to make a company's critical performance metrics come to life.

This technology represents a complete re-architecture of the best of the company's flagship business intelligence tools, Media and Esperant. The Web-based, open architecture makes use of Java components and runs on industry standard Web servers and enterprise Java Bean-based application servers such as Apache and IBM's Websphere. In addition to the Web-based re-design, a number of product improvements and modules have been added to complement the suite, including enhanced Data Mining.

Visionyze customers will now benefit from a unique Web-based interface, replacing the separate interfaces for Media and Esperant. Picasso also has a lighter client program that minimizes requests to servers, improving performance and all but eliminating deployment and maintenance headaches. Picasso customers will still be able to rely on the security and data connectivity that they have come to trust at Visionyze.

"Picasso provides a number of distinct advantages for everyone we serve, from our own applications development team, to existing customers, new customers and partners," says Garry Ciambella, vice president of Software Development at Visionyze. "These benefits include a unique Web interface, improved performance, openness, as well as high security and data connectivity."

Open E-Business Framework

Visionyze's analytic technology integrates well into existing e-business frameworks. Each component has documented application program interfaces (APIs) that enable programmers to deploy pieces of Picasso's functionality within other applications. Picasso can therefore be used in a wide variety of configurations and processing models.

Picasso's "visualization layer" conception contributes to the product's openness. This functionality will allow business-critical information to be viewed from devices other than Web browsers, such as personal digital assistants and cellular phones. This capability is intended to leverage the company's WAP and wireless expertise and complement Speedware's second generation of MobileDev, a development tool for creating wireless applications.

"Picasso is a very good fit in a world where the Web is emerging as the dominant interface," adds Garry Ciambella. "Companies will be able to benefit from the "anywhere, anytime" access provided by the Web to analyze their company's performance. And since Picasso is vendor agnostic, companies can incorporate this high-performance analytic tool into many other e-business applications."

Strong Foundation

Visionyze's engineering team was fortunate to begin this re-architecture with existing leading-edge business intelligence technology. The new design leverages Media's user-friendly interface, Esperant's plain language database queries as well as the data access transparency provided by the advanced Hybrid Online Application Processing (HOLAP) engine.

Picasso is currently being used at a few selected sites. All future releases of Visionyze's packaged analytic applications will also be released on the new architecture. Plans to roll out the new architecture to existing customers are currently in progress and the next release of Visionyze's business intelligence tools is expected to be generally available next quarter.

About Visionyze.com

Visionyze is a leading global provider of customer-centric analytic applications and business intelligence tools. Visionyze's Analytics allow companies to leverage existing data to deliver business and customer intelligence information to decision-makers, allowing them to improve operations and build customer loyalty.

Today, over 400 global industry-leading companies use Visionyze.com's software solutions. These companies include GTE, Pacific Bell, Nortel Networks, Trimark Investments, Schlumberger, City of San Francisco, Gateway Telephone, Royal Bank of Canada, Healthcall, and Navmed. Visionyze's partners include Clarify, IBM, Nortel Networks, Lucent Technologies, Vantive, Microsoft, Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Informatica, EDS, Hewlett-Packard, Ross Systems, Witness Systems and Sun Microsystems. Visit www.visionyze.com for more information.

About Speedware Corporation

Speedware Corporation is a global provider of wireless and Internet application development solutions, as well as business intelligence and Linux solutions through its wholly owned subsidiary, Visionyze.com. The Company has sales and marketing centers in North America and Europe, plus a worldwide network of distributors and value-added resellers. To see demonstrations of Speedware's leading-edge technology, visit www.speedware.com.

Contact Bob Delamore, vice president and General Manager, Visionyze.com, 925- 867-3300 x228, bobd@visionyze.com or Dan Brennan, NATIONAL Public Relations, 514-843-2325, dbrennan@national.ca.