Features - Financial Plays Of The Week:

SAND SIGNS $900K TRANSPORTATION ANALYTICS DEAL

SAND Technology announced that it has been awarded a competitive contract worth CA$900,000 for a data warehousing project to provide traffic and associated revenue reports to the management of 407 International Inc. 407 International owns and operates 407 ETR (Express Toll Route), an east-west toll highway located just north of Toronto.

Under the terms of the contract, SAND will provide software and services to integrate data from both a PeopleSoft ERP system and operational transactions systems into a centralized analytic and reporting repository within a SAND Analytic Server. The company will also provide standard reporting and ad hoc query interfaces allowing 407 ETR management to easily run reports and conduct in-depth analysis of customer usage of their facilities. The contract includes ongoing customer support for three years after implementation, which is expected to be finished by the summer -- though 407 ETR can anticipate seeing the first usable business results substantially earlier.

"What impressed us the most about SAND Technology was their ability, in a 24-hour period, to integrate our historical data and create a demonstration system that addressed our unique business requirements," said Dave Allred, CIO of 407 ETR. "This rapid response capability and our resulting ability to actually experience first-hand the system performance gave us the confidence to move forward on this project."

"This is an important opportunity for SAND to continue to demonstrate to the transportation industry the value of the SAND Analytic Server as a high-performance information hub capable of providing speedy and easy management access to business data," said SAND CEO Arthur Ritchie. "While we have extensive experience in rail through customers like CN and BNSF and logistics with Lynx Express and FedEx, this is our entry into the expanding electronic toll road sector, where understanding customer usage is critical to efficient financial and infrastructure management."