Search Software America Delivers IDS Solution

The UK-based operational unit of Search Software America (SSA), a leading international innovator and developer of data search and match software since 1985, announced the general release of the Company's next generation software solution expected to significantly challenge the competitive price/performance status quo among name search and matching software solutions worldwide.

Coming to market after more than three years of focused, international development and highly-successful customer trials, the new product, called SSA Identity Systems (IDS), builds upon the Company's widely-installed flagship software solution while advancing the data search and match state-of-the-art beyond anything available from any source in today's competitive marketplace. In short, the Company said, its new IDS solution is an industry-first, industrial-strength, world-class solution tailored for a growing market currently demanding faster, more compatible, WEB-enabled products that minimise customer development and programming requirements and significantly lessen time-to-market cycles.

Leading software solutions in this category, which SSA has pioneered internationally for over fifteen years, are used primarily among world-class organisations to find and match duplicate, hard-to-find and even fraudulent names, addresses and other identifying data in their extensive database files. In today's fast-growing Internet-based world of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) commerce, among new applications developments such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and for a wide range of traditional finance, healthcare, utility, police and governmental entities, this software is vital to data integrity, relationship quality and protection as well as expense control and customer satisfaction.

According to Kevin Heimbaugh, SSA's Manger for UK and Europe: "Our new IDS solution is the most efficient and effective data search and match software product to be announced in the past year, in large part because in addition to its net connectivity and ease-of-use features, it is the first and only product of its kind that does not require end-users to spend valuable time and programming resources to make changes to existing database tables or formats.

"No product from any other vendor in this space comes close to matching the comprehensive, state-of-the-art features of SSA's Identity Systems solution or the speed at which this new entry can provide the end result," Heimbaugh added.

Chief among the new product's most distinguishing features are, according to SSA, the following:

• Out-of-the-Box Applicability, Quick Quality Results without Programming: Without programming, or modification to existing database tables, SSA's Identity Systems provides ready-to-use on-line inquiry and batch processing of identification data about people, companies, addresses and products. High quality results are achieved regardless of the quality, format or variation of the user's data.
• Comprehensive Connectivity: SSA's Identity Systems Connection Server supports multi-user access, session continuation across transaction boundaries, and TCP/IP connectivity to local clients on local area networks (LANS), wide area networks (WANS), via a java-based graphical user interface (GUI) Intranets as well as Web systems.
• Rapid Development and Deployment of Central Indexes: With SSA's Identity Systems solution, identity tables from different source systems can be quickly and easily brought together to create a centrally managed index, immediately available for online and batch searching and matching. This central index can then be scanned for duplicates. Real-time synchronisation with User's Source Tables Using advanced database trigger technology, the IDS Index Manager ensures that changes made to the User's Source Tables via the Organisation's business systems are immediately reflected in its own high-performance indexes, providing a seamless and streamlined extension to the business transactions.
• IDS Search Server Performs Entire Search and Match Process: The IDS Search Server performs the entire search and match process for a user's search. Multiple search definitions can be defined, including multi-tiered searches (name search, followed by address search etc). For any given search, the Search Server matches, filters and sorts the candidates into a result-set for return to the search client or an answer-set to be stored back into the database table.
• Early Adopters Praise New Product's Features & Market-Readiness: Preferring to launch for general availability a complete, reliable, mature and finished product, Search Software America said its December offering is release 1.3 of IDS. In the past year, release 1.2 has been evaluated and adopted by a number of current customers, including GE Capital.
• A $Billion Dollar Industry Growing at 47% Annually: According to Giga analyst Lou Agosta, the data quality market has quietly reached $250 million dollars and is poised for further double-digit growth. If one includes applications such as CRM, data mining, data warehousing and ETL, according to expert data quality consultant Larry English, the size of the market reaches the multi-billion dollar range. According to IDC in 1997 -1998 the European Market for Customer Relationship Management grew by 47% and expects this trend to continue to 2003. Organisations need to identify and maintain key customer relationships, to build loyalty and to ultimately increase profitability.

About Search Software America

Search Software America, a division of SPL WorldGroup, is a privately-held company with operations in the US, UK, Australia and South America. Search Software America develops and markets international software products that significantly enhance an organisation's ability to search, find, match and group identity data within their computer systems and network databases. Search Software America specialises in software solutions that add `data intelligence and quality' to critical information-intensive systems. With some 15 years experience, SSA has built a remarkable client roster in excess of 375 customers including AT&T, Amex, Barclays, Citibank, Equifax, Experian, GE Capital, UNISYS, VISA, Zurich Financial Services as well as many state and federal government bodies.

Contact Veronika von Pfetten, Sterling Hager, Tel: +44 (0)1753 - 701 172, vpfetten@sterlinghager.co.uk or Kevin Heimbaugh, Search Software America, Tel: +44 (0) 1118 - 9723372, kevin_heimbaugh@searchsoftware.com .