On The Market:

Databeacon 5.3 for Interactive Data Publishing

Databeacon announced Databeacon 5.3, a new release of its award-winning data publishing, analysis and reporting software at the SIIA 2002 Annual Conference. The new software addresses the specific data publishing needs of organizations such as Nielsen//NetRatings, whose core business involves providing interactive data on the Internet or via extranets. Using Databeacon 5.3, information providers are able to present data to customers in a compelling, interactive and easily understood format.

"Our customers and key prospects now have the ability to ask more questions of their data to garner more valuable insights," says Andy Coutts, Databeacon's president and CEO. "Databeacon 5.3 is focused on those needs, offering more data selection and display options, and a faster network-centric deployment architecture that allows hundreds or thousands of people to experience interactive data with no need for training, manuals or software installations."

For example, subscribers to Nielsen//NetRatings' Global WebWatch, the premier Internet audience measurement product, can perform global, regional and cross-country analysis on key Internet measures. Equipped with Databeacon's Insight viewer, Global WebWatch subscribers need only a browser and connection to the Internet to answer questions such as "Does it makes sense to expand my online offerings to other countries, and if so, which ones?" and "How does my audience profile and that of my competitors differ from market to market?" In addition to Nielsen//NetRatings, other Databeacon customers include healthcare, government and financial organizations such as Pfizer, City of Portland and UBS Warburg.

Specific features of Databeacon 5.3 release include the interactive ability to view data values as a percentage of the row total, a percentage of the column total, or as a percentage of the grand total. "You very quickly see how an individual result relates to overall performance," says Coutts. "If you have $10,000 in foreign equity funds, you can easily see that this represents 12% of your total foreign investments, 8% of your equity investments, and 6% of your overall portfolio."

The release offers a new Performance Index view of data. All values are related to the overall result, and then expressed as an index where the norm is 1, over-performance is greater than 1, and under-performance less than 1. For example, if 50% of overall sales are from Region 2 but only 20% of the sales of Product A are from that region, then the performance index of 0.4 (20%/50%) clearly illustrates this anomaly. "This is a powerful display format for market researchers and sales executives," adds Coutts. "You immediately see what's winning and what's lagging."

Databeacon 5.3 also introduces new calculations based on the distinct count of a category item. If a health research professional wants to know how many physicians prescribed either brand A or brand B of a particular drug over a period of time, Databeacon will calculate the union of distinct counts for each brand and return the derived value(s) as a new row in the table chart. Similarly, an intersection of distinct counts would show the number of physicians that prescribed both brands. These powerful calculations are often used when publishing survey data and incidence reports, showing values that would otherwise remain hidden.

"We have made a significant improvement to Databeacon's deployment architecture," says Coutts. "In release 5.3, data publishers can now choose to make the Databeacon Insight viewer persistent on any user's PC using Microsoft's Internet Explorer. This means that after the first and only one-click download of our software, response times will be far faster when accessing data from the Web site."

Coutts also says Databeacon 5.3 addresses the needs of customers who publish data in specific portal environments: "I am pleased to say that all of these features are also supported in the recently released Databeacon PageEnhancer API. Our customers now have unmatched control and capabilities in how they get insight out."

Pricing for Databeacon 5.3 starts at $10,000 for a 10-named-user, one-developer starter system, $60,000 for a single-processor unlimited user license and $90,000 for a two-processor unlimited user license. Databeacon PageEnhancer API costs an additional $10,000 for named-user Databeacon 5.3 licensees, and $15,000 with an unlimited user license.

About Databeacon Inc

Founded in 1995, Databeacon Inc is the award-winning developer of Databeacon, the Data Publishing, Analysis and Reporting software designed for organizations whose core business involves providing data over the Internet to large communities of information consumers. Organizations around the world are using the design, publish and dissemination features of Databeacon to increase audience reach, enable better decisions, build strong relationships and enhance competitiveness. To see Databeacon in action, please visit www.databeacon.com.

Contact Databeacon Inc, Andy Coutts, 613-729-4480 x289, acoutts@databeacon.com.

PriceNet Price Management & Optimization System

Increased pricing process efficiency, faster response to market conditions and improved margin performance are promised from the latest version of KSS' PriceNet gasoline pricing solution, further developed to support the management of prices at company and dealer-managed outlets. KSS demonstrated version 3.1 of PriceNet at the nacs.tech technology conference and trade show for the convenience store industry, in Dallas.

KSS, a leading supplier of price management and optimization systems for the retail and petroleum sectors, announces the release of a major new version of its PriceNet system, version 3.1. Building upon proven success of previous versions, PriceNet 3.1 extends price management functionality to efficiently handle thousands of gasoline stations and to the support of pricing for dealer channels. Combined with high levels of data automation, PriceNet can significantly decrease the cost, effort and time associated with pricing, allowing users to respond more quickly to market opportunities and focus attention on pricing decisions and market analysis.

Clients in the US, UK, Europe, and South East Asia will be upgrading to this new version during the second quarter of 2002.

KSS also demonstrated and discussed the PriceStrat system for convenience store pricing.

Commenting on this latest release, David Mushin, CEO of KSS stated, "We are very encouraged by the reaction of clients to this new release, which represents a significant step forward in automation and process efficiency. Our clients, pleased with the modeling & optimization capability of earlier releases for company managed sites, asked us if we could extend the system to support dealer and franchise-operated sites, reducing the overall cost of the pricing process. This we have achieved through close collaboration with our users."

PriceNet 3.1 now enables gasoline retailers to simultaneously increase margins and reduce process-related costs through a more efficient and timely pricing process.

Greg Girard of AMR Research, in the article "Revenue management: The Price Can't be Right if the Tools Aren't" reports "Price management is critical to increasing profits, gaining market share, and building customer loyalty."

About KSS

Established in 1993, KSS is a leading supplier of price management and optimization systems and services for the petroleum, mass and convenience retail industries. Organizations use KSS' solutions to enhance the efficiency and consistency of their pricing work processes and to optimize retail prices, leading to significantly increased revenue. KSS software is available as an on-site, integrated system or as a managed service, utilizing the experience of the company's pricing consultants. A range of services including opportunity assessment, implementation, training, consulting and ongoing support are available from operations in Florham Park, NJ and Manchester, UK. The company's Web site address is www.kssg.com.