On The Market:

Amdocs Announces v4.0 of Its Fraud Management Solution

Amdocs a leading provider of billing and CRM to the communications industry, announced the release of version 4.0 of the Amdocs Fraud Management solution. Its Fraud Management Solution -- Version 4.0 provides complete, real-time fraud management support for prepaid/postpaid wireline, wireless, IP and next generation services.

"As next generation and advanced IP services emerge into the marketplace and as these services, payments and partner relationships become more complex, networks are increasingly becoming vulnerable to fraud, potentially accounting for millions in lost revenue," said Wayne Purboo, vice president of Research and Development at Amdocs. "Amdocs Fraud Management system is a complete, real-time fraud detection solution, immediately identifying, tracking and resolving fraud. The system allows operators to capture lost revenue and maintain continual profitability, supporting limitless service growth as operators deploy next generation and advanced mobile commerce services."

Amdocs Fraud Management 4.0 provides a single, converged, real-time fraud management solution for multiple lines of business including, wireline, wireless and next generation services. This robust application incorporates state-of-the-art detection, investigation, identification and resolution capabilities, allowing operators to enhance profitability by reducing lost revenue associated with fraud. The system utilizes multiple technologies such as adaptive systems, machine learning, data mining, clustering, and other statistical and information theoretic techniques to monitor subscriber usage patterns and detect any abnormal usage. Amdocs Fraud Management automatically and dynamically learns user behavioral profiles and adapts to changing behaviors. The system is capable of discovering new fraud patterns and is also capable of capturing specific expert knowledge in its rich knowledge base, as new next generation mobile services are introduced and potential instances of fraud increase.

Key features of Amdocs Fraud Management 4.0

• Support for voice and data, wireless and wireline, prepaid and postpaid and next generation services: Amdocs Fraud Management 4.0 can process and analyze multiple types of external databases and platforms. Inputs can arrive from network nodes, circuit/packet probes, 3rd parties, security systems, prepaid/commerce platforms and customer care and billing systems.
• Real-time and near real-time detection: Amdocs Fraud Management supports transaction-based, SS7 and file-based processing.
• Field-proven unlimited scalability: Amdocs systems have demonstrated their ability to process the high volume, high capacity demand of today's rapidly expanding marketplace. Amdocs Fraud Management scalable architecture has proven its ability to process millions of detail records per day.
• Subscription fraud module: Amdocs Fraud Management 4.0 includes a dedicated module to cross-check new subscriber's usages against existing repositories of past fraudulent activities.

About Amdocs

Amdocs is a leading provider of billing and CRM to the communications industry. Amdocs has an unparalleled success record in project delivery of its mission-critical products. With human resources of more than 9,100 information systems professionals, Amdocs supports a global customer base.

For more information visit the Web site at www.amdocs.com.

IQMS and CorVu Partner to Provide Business Intelligence Tools

IQMS, a leading provider of enterprise and supply chain management software to the plastics industry, and CorVu, a global provider of enterprise business performance management, e-business intelligence and Balanced Scorecard solutions, announce a partnership to integrate CorVu's CorBusiness analytics tools into the EnterpriseIQ enterprise management system. As an available EnterpriseIQ module, CorBusiness will pull key production and accounting data gathered by the EnterpriseIQ system and present it to plant management and executives as easy-to-read key performance indicators. Further, it will allow key management personnel to drill down into those key performance indicators for further detail.

With market uncertainty and increasing competition both home and abroad, plastics manufacturing companies are under tremendous pressure to reduce costs and quickly identify areas of profitability or non-profitability within the enterprise. This data, especially for large and multi-site manufacturers, is increasingly difficult to pinpoint with accuracy over time. With CorBusiness and EnterpriseIQ, executives and managers are able to view, in graphical nature, exactly where their business is making money. They can identify trends over time, such as sales, materials cost or production by division or plant, and quickly manipulate the data into visual reports, rotatable 3-D graphs and executive dashboards. Each plant manager or executive can customize their own executive dashboard to see the key performance indicators most applicable to their job functions or areas of interest.

The addition of CorBusiness to the EnterpriseIQ system has been eagerly anticipated by plastics processors, who see value in condensing complex finance and operations information into graphical reports. "This really adds the missing link for plant management, who want to know immediately what's happening with both finance and operations without having to wade through stacks of data sheets," says Eric Ahlgren, Controller at Scientific Molding Corporation (Somerset, WI). "Having this key data in one centralized source will allow us to quickly identify which areas of our business are performing or under-performing."

With the new partnership, CorVu hopes to leverage IQMS's position as the plastics industry market leader for enterprise software. "With their advanced product and large customer base, IQMS is the ideal partner for us as we expand our product offering for the plastics industry," says Alan M. Missroon, Jr., vice president of Sales, CorVu Americas. "We've learned through experience that teaming with the market leader is the only way to gain rapid deployment within an industry."

The integration of CorBusiness into EnterpriseIQ fits in well with the IQMS strategy to provide complete enterprise solutions to the plastics industry. "Our systems already gather complete production and financial information in real-time," says Terry Cline, IQMS vice president of Operations. "With CorBusiness, we'll bring that real-time information directly to the executive plant management, who need to know quickly, and in an unmistakable format, where they are or aren't making money."

The partnership also fits in with the IQMS corporate strategy to target larger, and more diverse plastics and repetitive manufacturing companies. In addition to integrating the executive information capabilities of CorVu, IQMS has recently introduced or expanded features that meet the needs of large and multi-site manufacturers. These features include:

• fully integrated EDI, crucial to suppliers in the automotive, appliances and housewares industries;
• IQ CRM, or customer relationship management, which helps manufacturers more efficiently manage call centers and sales & marketing activities;
• IQ WebDirect, which provides information sharing and collaboration tools for customers and suppliers over the Internet;
• PDA-enabled wireless warehouse management;
• JobShopIQ, allows manufacturers to manage their tool rooms and other secondary operations with the same integrated system as their repetitive manufacturing operations.

IQMS customers include: Technimark, Injectronics, Scientific Molding Corporation, Illinois Tool Works and other progressive manufacturing companies within the plastics industry.

CorBusiness will be made available as an integrated module in the EnterpriseIQ system in July of 2002. Pricing for the module will depend on the number of site users and will start at approximately $6,000.

About IQMS

Since 1989, IQMS has been a pioneer in the design and development of enterprise software for plastics processors and other repetitive and discrete manufacturers. Its EnterpriseIQ and JobShopIQ ERP II software natively integrate front office, accounting, manufacturing and supply chain management into powerful, yet easy-to-use systems. With offices in California, Illinois and Canada, IQMS is the #1 enterprise software developer for North American plastics processors and meets the needs of manufacturers in the automotive, medical, appliances, construction, housewares and other industries across North America, Europe and Latin America. Visit www.iqms.com.

About CorVu Corporation

CorVu Corporation is a global provider of enterprise business performance management, e-business intelligence and Balanced Scorecard solutions. Combining OLAP query and reporting, executive dashboard alerts and forecasting, CorVu's solutions offer information analysis capabilities that empower our customers to achieve strategic objectives and improve business performance. CorVu provides a comprehensive business performance management solution to over 3000 customers, including leading suppliers in aerospace, banking, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, insurance, manufacturing, mining, the public sector, telecommunications, and transportation. For more information, please call 800-610-0769 or visit their Web site at www.corvu.com.

iXmatch Announces Release of Revolutionary Search Software

iXfind offers world-class search and personalized navigation capabilities to enable users to find exactly what they are looking for. iXfind was developed to offer online users an intuitive approach to quickly and easily find content that describes products, information, services and suppliers. The highly flexible software is designed to easily integrate into applications being built today as well as those in the future. iXfind will benefit all levels of customers from small departments to global enterprises, it works with unstructured and structured data, and it handles both simple and complex queries. It will also benefit content, e-commerce and knowledge managers, who are all responsible for helping users find content.

iXfind leapfrogs current search technology by combining several cutting-edge data mining and personalization techniques. Its unique design and in-memory implementation enables it to achieve unparalleled quality results with unrivaled search speeds. Clustering results into relevant groups and using collaborative filtering to make content recommendations simplifies the process of finding the right content. By providing the best user experience, and delivering more accurate search results, iXfind will dramatically increase the volume and value of customers' business transactions.

"iXfind offers world-class performance, rapid deployment and unlimited scalability," said Gopal Sadagopal, iXmatch's Co-founder and vice president of Product Development. "By leveraging our technology and metadata, and taking full advantage of the output from extraction software, iXfind can achieve extremely precise results. Our combination of providing accurate results and tremendous performance is unbeatable."

"Enabling users to easily locate content is one of the most effective ways a company can increase conversion rates, customer satisfaction and employee productivity," said Prakash Puram, iXmatch's president and CEO. "iXfind's architectural elegance, ease of integration, and ability to search both structured and unstructured content simplifies application development and reduces total costs. It's price, performance, enterprise scalability, and ability to meet a variety of customer requirements make iXfind a truly compelling product for customers."

About iXmatch

iXmatch is a leading provider of matching, searching, and analytics software. The company's patented software products maximize profitability and customer satisfaction by helping users quickly and easily find content that describes products, information, services, and suppliers. Customers deploying the next generation of applications in CRM, Business Intelligence, e-Commerce, e-Procurement, Strategic Supplier Sourcing, and Human Capital Management will enable their business transactions with cutting-edge iXmatch software. Based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, iXmatch is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for Software Products, is an early adopter of the Microsoft .NET platform, and is a high-growth Microsoft .NET start Independent Software Vendor. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.ixmatch.com.

ShowCase Announces Availability of Essbase 6.2

One of the ShowCase customers beta-testing Essbase 6.2 is Sports Authority Inc. The new calculation capabilities allow Sports Authority 'top-down' as well as 'bottom-up' allocations, which could help them carry out activities like budgeting more quickly and easily. The company first licensed Essbase from ShowCase in 1996 and today has more than 600 Essbase users in locations throughout the country.

Reaffirms Endorsement of OLAP as Central to Business Intelligence

ShowCase, a division of SPSS Inc a provider of business intelligence solutions, announced the release of Essbase 6.2 for companies using the IBM eServer iSeries AS/400 computing platform. The announcement reaffirms ShowCases' endorsement of OLAP as a technology that is central to business intelligence, and its commitment to making the most advanced OLAP solution available to companies worldwide.

ShowCase is a platinum-level OEM partner with Hyperion Solutions, which develops and markets Essbase on multiple platforms. ShowCase has marketed Essbase to iSeries-centric companies since 1996, and has more than 500 Essbase customers worldwide.

"ShowCase is proud to offer our customers this industry-leading OLAP solution," said Patrick Dauga, ShowCase president. "We believe that OLAP plays a central role in business intelligence, and we will continue to enhance Essbase for use by iSeries-centric companies.

"Some of our customers are combining Essbase with predictive technologies, such as our Clementine data mining solution," Dauga added. "This combination gives them an even greater ability to analyze their customers, their markets and their operations, and definitely gives them an edge over the competition. But OLAP capabilities are still critical."

Essbase 6.2 is the first version of Essbase to enable users to take full advantage of the parallel processing capabilities of today's servers. Data can now be loaded into an Essbase multidimensional database ("cube") by using several processors simultaneously, speeding load time.

Other Essbase 6.2 enhancements make administration of Essbase easier and more efficient. These include the ability to:

• Control the scope of queries and the amount of time they require
• Connect faster, using fewer system resources, due to improved memory utilization Perform several types of calculations in different ways than previous releases allowed
• Enable administrators to safely terminate sessions without compromising the database

Essbase 6.2 will be generally available by the end of May.

"Essbase 6.2 offers a number of features that should help us do our work more efficiently," said Scott McPherran, manager of information systems for Sports Authority, Inc., one of the ShowCase customers beta-testing Essbase 6.2. "For example, one of the new calculation capabilities allows 'top-down' as well as 'bottom-up' allocations, which could help us carry out activities like budgeting more quickly and easily."

The Sports Authority, based in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., is a full-line sporting goods retailer in the United States. The company first licensed Essbase from ShowCase in 1996 and today has more than 600 Essbase users in locations throughout the country.

"ShowCase customers use Essbase for budgeting, financial reporting and for many other purposes," said Kathy Konkel, ShowCase product manager. "Our organization's in-depth understanding of Essbase enables us to help customers get the greatest value from it."

Essbase OLAP technology is the foundation for ShowCase business performance management (BPM) applications, the Customer Focus Suite and the CFO Suite.

ShowCase's next release of Essbase, due later this year, will include enhancements that will enable customers to use more parallel processing in functions such as calculating the cube and extracting information from cubes.

About ShowCase

A division of SPSS, provides a complete spectrum of business intelligence (BI) solutions, from historical reporting, to measurement and analysis, to predictive analytics. These solutions support a wide range of business initiatives, such as analytical CRM, sales/marketing analysis, and supply chain analytics. ShowCase also offers a suite of analytical software for CFOs that includes financial management and reporting, process costing, balanced scorecards, key performance indicators (KPIs), forecasting and much more. ShowCase utilizes Essbase OLAP technology. The ShowCase Web site can be found at www.spssshowcase.com.