Informatica Unveils "Business Insight Networks" Vision

Informatica Corporation outlined a market vision and product roadmap to help companies capitalize on the promise of e-business by building "business insight networks" to deliver unprecedented visibility and top- and bottom-line growth prospects across their extended value chains. The business insight network vision transforms the principles behind data warehousing, business intelligence, Internet and wireless technologies into a unified network that gives corporate professionals a 360-degree view of their business, including internal operations as well as customer and supplier relationships.

Mapping this market vision to Informatica's product offerings, the Informatica Insight Network combines the company's award-winning data-integration platform and analytic applications with its new wireless, voice and Web delivery technologies. Such a network will allow companies to integrate data from disparate sources, analyze the information consistently across businesses, and deliver personalized, timely insight to a wide range of corporate information consumers via PC, Web portal, cell phone or PDA. The Informatica Insight Network will complement and leverage companies' existing transactional systems: such as ERP, CRM, supply chain management, procurement and e-commerce; which have enabled operational efficiencies and generated a wealth of data containing potential untapped business insight.

"eBusiness is about so much more than operational efficiencies and bottom-line improvements," said Gaurav Dhillon, Informatica's chief executive officer and co-founder. "Reducing costs is just the down payment for e-business. The potential to substantially improve revenue growth is the great opportunity. The Informatica Insight Network can provide every executive, manager and mobile professional with personalized and timely business information to capture new market opportunities and drive revenues."

Informatica's vision and roadmap were unveiled before 600 customers and partners at the company's Informatique 2000 user conference in Orlando, Florida.

Unlike other software that only provides "stovepipe" views of single business functions, such as CRM, Informatica's products integrate and analyze customer, supplier and business-operations data to deliver comprehensive business insight to anyone, anywhere, at any time. By combining the platform, applications and delivery software, Informatica customers will be able to break the desktop barrier that has limited analytics to a handful of business analysts rather than thousands of information users throughout the enterprise.

"Informatica's Insight Network provides companies with a powerful vision--a seamless network of critical corporate information and metrics, delivered to key decision-makers at the point of work--helping companies improve their performance across a range of business functions," said Philip Russom, research director of DWBI at Hurwitz Consulting Group. "A business insight network promises to vastly expand access to the closely held world of analytics, equipping e-business to act more quickly and compete more effectively."

The components of the Informatica Insight Network include:

• A comprehensive data-integration platform. Comprised of Informatica's flagship PowerCenter, PowerCenter.e and PowerMart products, this data integration platform helps companies integrate and analyze data from essentially any corporate systems, including ERP, CRM, supply chain, procurement, e-business and legacy systems. Informatica's platform provides unmatched flexibility, scalability and manageability for companies' analytic requirements.
• Cross-value chain analytic applications. Released in June 2000, Informatica Applications provide out-of-the box standardized reports and metrics to help companies analyze business performance across their entire e-business value chain including front-office, back office and procurement operations. Informatica's applications family consists of modules focused on eCRM, eBusiness Operations, eProcurement and eMarketplace. The applications are tightly integrated with the underlying data-integration platform which provides unparalleled flexibility, and allows the integration of essentially all enterprise and e-business data.
• Web/wireless/voice information delivery. Informatica's forthcoming information delivery technology will provide personalized, alert-driven business analytics and metrics via Web portals, WAP-enabled devices and interactive voice response (IVR). Offering personalization of information and metrics specific to both users' needs and access devices, Informatica's information delivery technology will allow users to customize which metrics they wish to receive and tailor that profile for different devices--whether they access their analytics at the office or on the road.

"Using Informatica's analytic solutions, we've met the challenge of integrating our enterprise information and unlocking its value through business analytics," said Don Stoller, director of information management at Owens & Minor, the nation's largest distributor of medical and surgical supplies. "Informatica's business insight networks vision depicts the way in which companies can extend the platform and applications across the enterprise and deliver personalized analytics, extracting more value from corporate information for far more business professionals whenever and wherever needed."

Availability

The core elements of the Informatica Insight Network, including Informatica's data-integration platform and analytic applications, are currently available. Informatica's wireless and voice information delivery capabilities will be released in phases during the next two quarters, including limited availability in Q4 2000 and general availability during in the first half of 2001.

About Informatica

Informatica provides e-business analytic solutions that enable companies to leverage business insight for competitive advantage. More than 1,000 global customers leverage the Informatica Insight Network to integrate, analyze and personalize critical business information to improve business performance and responsiveness across the entire business value chain. Informatica's products include a comprehensive suite of analytic applications, the industry's most powerful data integration platform and a wide range of supporting services and partnerships. The company's list of leading customers includes 3Com, AMD, American Airlines, Boeing, Borders Group, Chevron, Cisco, CNET, Deutsche Bank, eBay, GE, Genencor, Hewlett-Packard, Inktomi, J. Crew, Merrill Lynch, MetLife, MCI WorldCom, Motorola, Mutual of Omaha, Philips, Polo Ralph Lauren, Preview Travel, Priceline.com, Sprint, and Zurich Insurance. For more information, call 800-970-1179 or visit Informatica's Web site at www.informatica.com.