On The Market:

DataFlux Announces the Release of v.4.2 of dfPower Studio

DataFlux Corporation, a SAS Company and leader in the development of data quality and data integration solutions, announced the availability of geocoding as part of the dfPower Verify PowerPack. This announcement coincides with the release of dfPower Studio version 4.2 upgrade. The new geocode option provides ZIP+4 Centroid level geocoding and will return longitude/latitude, state/county FIPS codes and census tract and block group numbers to the user.

Tony Fisher, DataFlux president said, "The new enhancements to dfPower Studio are significant because they allow users more control in maintaining high quality data. In addition, the new geocoding module provides enhancement data for analyzing trends, enhancing marketing and customer relationships, reducing service and delivery costs as well as site selection, spatial analysis and territory optimization."

dfPower Studio Enhancements

The release of version 4.2 adds new functionality to the dfPower Studio product, an entirely point-and-click driven, out-of-the-box software product suite for managing the quality, consistency and usability of corporate data. With a user interface that remains the same regardless of the underlying operating system or database platform, dfPower Studio facilitates full end-user customization, enterprise-wide data integration and United States Postal Service (USPS) CASS (Coding Accuracy Support System) certification of data sets. Additional functionality available with the release of Version 4.2 includes:

• Ability to import data standardization business rules into dfPower Studio
• Enhancements for choosing surviving record during duplicate elimination
• Ability to review the results of the duplicate elimination process prior to making changes in the database

"DataFlux has always been committed to the ongoing satisfaction of our customer base. It is our goal to respond to customer requests and suggestions in a timely manner." says Scott Gidley, DataFlux Chief Technology Officer. "Our customers now have the ultimate flexibility in user-defined business rules coupled with the ability to enhance that data with geocoded information for analysis purposes."

Pricing & Availability

The dfPower Verify-Geocode PowerPack is now available as a separately priced add-on for new or existing DataFlux customers. dfPower Studio 4.2 is now available for shipment. Current DataFlux customers with existing maintenance subscriptions will receive the dfPower Studio 4.2 upgrade at no charge.

A free trial version of dfPower Studio is available for download at www.dataflux.com/demozone.asp. It will give users the ability to quickly and easily gauge the level of their data quality.

About DataFlux Corporation

DataFlux is a North Carolina-based software company that provides leading edge, award-winning technology for data cleansing, data augmentation, data consolidation and conversion and data scrubbing. The versatile DataFlux products are designed to significantly improve the accuracy, consistency and usability of an organization's critical data, enhancing the effectiveness of data-driven applications and initiatives such as data warehousing, e-commerce systems, data mining, customer information systems, sales force automation, marketing databases, customer/prospect profiling and list management. Some of the companies currently using DataFlux solutions include Bank of America, US Patent and Trademark Office, Wells Fargo, and Microsoft. DataFlux is a wholly owned subsidiary of SAS Institute, the leader in decision support and data warehousing, providing integrated enterprise information-delivery solutions and e-business solutions. For more on DataFlux, visit: www.dataflux.com.

Contact Steve Traugott, Demaree Public Relations Inc, 603-428-4411 straugott@demaree-pr.com.

Sagent Releases Sagent Solution v.4.5i

Sagent, a leading provider of Business Intelligence solutions, announces the general availability of Sagent Solution version 4.5i. Featuring what are claimed to be industry beating performance and ROI characteristics, this new version enhances performance by 150 percent or more and introduces iStudio, the industry's first Web reporting solution that leverages parallel data flow and Web server technologies to deliver the power of analytical transformation libraries to every user within an organization.

Featuring a thin-client user interface, iStudio allows users to quickly create and share sophisticated queries, reports and multidimensional OLAP views. iStudio is a "zero administration" product that dramatically decreases the cost of developing and deploying enterprise business intelligence solutions.

Performance optimization in Sagent Solution 4.5i allows customers to increase both the size and availability of their data warehouse. Existing hardware configurations can process twice the amount of data in the same time, benefiting applications with increasing volume requirements or the need to shorten daily load windows. Even more dramatic performance is achieved when additional processors are brought to bear. Sagent's automatic threading model allows customers to execute massively parallel data transformations on Solaris and Windows 2000. Initial benchmarks conducted with the assistance of Sun Microsystems validate Sagent's linear scalability on SMP servers. For example, on a Sun Microsystems mid-range server, Sagent can comfortably transform and load more than 100GB of data per day into an Oracle database.

"Return on Investment is the mantra", said Arthur Parker, president, Sagent EMEA, "and what we are bringing to the market with version 4.5i combines a dramatic reduction in cost with an equally dramatic increase in performance.

New technologies such as Zero Administration and Automatic Threading, plus the introduction of Solaris as our latest platform makes 4.5i the most complete and effective business intelligence engine in the world today." Beta Users report dramatic performance increases Otis Educational Systems, a developer of educational solutions that address the data warehousing, decision support, workflow and reporting requirements of today's school systems, and MedInitiatives, a health care technology company focused on the development and management of decision support solutions for its customers, are two Sagent partners who have experienced the benefits of the Sagent Solution 4.5i, and iStudio in particular.

"Sagent has proven again that it is a solutions company that understands its customer," said Greg Newcom, vice president of engineering, Otis Educational Systems Inc. "Our summary findings of the 4.5i release are a resounding positive as Sagent has addressed key issues with past version support and compatibility, increased scalability and increased functionality for both the designer as well as the end-user." Newcom added: "In addition to compatibility and scalability, Sagent has not forgotten the end-user. iStudio is a quantum leap in Web-based ad-hoc query tools that are completely integrated with the total back-end solution. We are looking forward to providing complex analysis capability to our user base with very little deployment cost." "Sagent's 4.5i release provided a 150 percent plus improvement in data load performance, which reduced internal efforts and decreased processing time for running data views," said Michael Tucker, vice president, technology solutions, MedInitiatives. "This is a direct benefit for our customers.

With iStudio, we have developed an unparalleled health care analytical application with wizard-like ad hoc functionality that delivers three-dimensional views of key claim data for our customers."

Key Components of the Sagent Solution 4.5i

• Sagent's multi-user data flow architecture has been optimized to execute transformation plans in parallel throughout the warehouse lifecycle. When creating and maintaining the warehouse, data cleansing and integration transforms read data concurrently from relational, flat file and mainframe sources. The Sagent Solution 4.5i fully exploits the high-speed parallel bulk load APIs found in the latest IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Sybase database servers, allowing system architects to design and implement sophisticated partitioning schemes for multi-terabyte data warehouses. After the warehouse has been loaded, complex analytics such as forecasting and customer segmentation can be run in parallel to deliver XML-based business intelligence services to applications in real time. Threading and parallelism are constrained only by the number of available processors and can be tuned using Sagent Administration.
• The Sagent Solution 4.5i analytic transformation library enables the Sagent Solution 4.5i to solve more complex business problems. Transformations certified with this release include the Point in Polygon transform, which allows users to locate customers within geographic regions of business significance such as market areas or flood zones. The Nearest Neighbor transform is used to identify points of interest within in a specified radius. Applications include finding the nearest ATM, physician or service center. The Forecast transform generates forward-looking estimates based on an intelligent assessment of historical data that compensates for missing data, "outliers" and natural seasonality.
• iStudio is Sagent's new Web reporting application designed to interact with Sagent's open repository, allowing users to create, edit and publish reports, queries and cross tabs using a personalised business view of the data warehouse. Users can save, retrieve and modify their work, then publish it for use by other users across the enterprise. For casual users, iStudio's report creation wizards shorten the learning curve and improve self-sufficiency. Sagent's transformation library is available to power users and can be used over the Web to perform complex business analyses against the warehouse and operational data sources. iStudio is built using a completely thin application framework that can be readily tailored to the "look and feel" requirements of a corporation, systems integrator or ISV.

Availability

The Sagent Solution 4.5i is available now from Sagent representatives, distributors and value-added resellers. For distribution information, visit www.sagent.com.

About Sagent

Sagent's suite of Business Intelligence solutions enables companies to measurably impact their business by implementing highly successful customer relationship and financial management initiatives. Through Sagent's powerful enabling technologies, organisations can easily and rapidly turn company data into relevant information that can be used for effective decision-making, analysis and reporting. Information can be extracted from multiple sources (internal and external), optimised for decision support and delivered in a customised format for Web-based or client applications. Even the most complex analytic application can be developed in weeks, not months.

More than 1,500 companies have selected Sagent software to enhance customer retention, cross-sell/up-sell, improve customer service, increase efficiencies of marketing campaigns, streamline business operations, analyse financials, and reduce costs. Customers include AT&T, BP Amoco, Boeing Employees Credit Union, Bristol Meyers, British Telecom, California State Automobile Association, Citibank, GPU Energy, Hughes Aircraft Employees Federal Credit Union, Johnson & Johnson (UK), Kemper National Insurance, Provident Central Credit Union, Safeway and Siemens. Sagent retains strategic relationships with partners such as Advent, Commerce One, Compaq, EDS, IBM, Microsoft, NEC, SAS and Sun Microsystems. Sagent is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

Contact Sagent, Bharat Mistry, Tel: +44 (0)118 945 0400, bmistry@sagent.co.uk.