Fiserv and Sun Microsystems Partner to Deliver Fiserv InformEnt Data Warehouse Solution for the UNIX Environment

Business Wire, May 1, 1996

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 1, 1996--Fiserv announced today that it has formed a strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems, Inc. to incorporate Sun(TM) servers and the Solaris(TM) operating system into the Fiserv InformEnt(TM) data warehouse solution.

The Fiserv InformEnt system is a complete data warehouse solution that gives decision makers and analysts a single source for current, accurate and consistent information on profitability, customers and marketplace activity. Since 1993, the InformEnt solution from Fiserv has been facilitating informed decision making and tangible revenue generation and expense reduction to financial and healthcare institutions throughout the country. The system's enterprise-wide scope and its ability to deliver immediate benefit make the InformEnt solution unique in the expanding data warehouse industry.

The InformEnt solution includes all the integrated modules necessary to build, manage and profitably use a data warehouse. The InformEnt system's four software modules--the Warehouse Architect, Process Manager, Desktop and Warehouse Model--deliver immediate benefit instead of costly component implementation and integration.

"Industry studies indicate that the cost of piecing together a data warehouse from ill-matched components can be very high," says Paul Jameson, Senior Vice President for InformEnt Systems at the Fiserv Pittsburgh business unit. "But the InformEnt solution, with its complete set of integrated modules, delivers a quick return on a low-risk investment. We work with our clients to maximize warehouse returns by focusing InformEnt product deployment in key revenue-generating and expense-reducing areas. We help to lower clients' ongoing expenses by remotely operating their warehouse for them, eliminating the need to maintain technical resources."

According to Rob Theis, Director of Sun's Financial Services, "The Fiserv InformEnt solution provides banks and other institutions with a highly scaleable, enterprise-wide decision support and data warehousing solution that is quite affordable and takes full advantage of Sun's network-centric computing architecture. Fiserv plays a significant role in delivering world class solutions and services to the banking community and we are delighted that the InformEnt system is now available on the Sun platform."

Solaris is an enterprise-wide operating environment for advanced information and communications applications including data warehousing and customer management systems. Sun Microsystems offers a line of high performance servers using the latest technologies and sophisticated design-integrating expertise to ensure the dependable operation of mission-critical network applications. Sun's servers are scaleable from 1 to 20 processors.

Once certified at Sun's competency center, the Fiserv InformEnt system will run on any Sun Solaris open system server. Certification in the Solaris environment enhances the attractiveness of the InformEnt solution to financial institutions already using Sun Microsystems products. Sun certification also immediately provides the InformEnt solution with a high level of scalability.

"We're excited about the new market that our partnership with Sun Microsystems brings," continued Jameson. "We are also impressed by Sun's Java product and plan to use Java to develop data warehousing applications for the World Wide Web.

Java is an efficient Internet programming language that is secure, reliable, real-time interpreted and familiar to anyone designing C or C programs. Applications developed with Java will run immediately on any platform because Java code will be interpreted line by line, in real time, on a user's computer rather than being compiled and converted to machine language in batch mode by a software vendor. Sun is already writing Java interpreters for Microsoft Windows(TM) 95, the Mac, Windows NT and several versions of UNIX. Once available, users won't have to purchase a specific type of computer or a specific operating system to run Java applications. Users of applications developed with Java will require less computing power on their desktops because the applications will run on the processing resources available on an internal network or a public network, like the Internet. Users linked to a network will suddenly have access to a new world of processing power and software, and will choose from available programs and applications just as they now tap information available on a private network or the Internet.

"Java will significantly alter the way everyone develops and uses applications," says Cyril Reif, Sun Microsystems Worldwide Banking Segment Manager. "It will have the most impact for the users of sophisticated data warehousing and analytical applications like the Fiserv InformEnt system."

With revenues in excess of $6 billion, Sun Microsystems, Inc. provides solutions which enable customers to build and maintain open network computing environments. Widely recognized as a proponent of open standards, the company is involved in the design, manufacture and sale of products, technologies and services for commercial and technical computing. Sun's SPARC(TM) workstations, multiprocessing servers, SPARC microprocessors, Solaris operating software and ISO-certified service organization each rank No. 1 in the UNIX industry. Founded in 1982, Sun is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., and employs more than 14,000 people worldwide.