NCR And Torrent Partner to Enhance Performance and Scalability of Data Warehousing Applications

Business Wire, Sept 15, 1998

DAYTON, Ohio and CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Sept.15, 1998--

- Joint Solutions Help Businesses Improve Profitability Through

Better Management of Customer Information -

NCR Corporation and Torrent(tm) Systems today announced a partnership under which the two companies plan to deliver high-performance business intelligence applications for data warehouses that enable customers in various industries to solve many critical business problems for the first time.

Under the terms of the agreement, Torrent's Orchestrate(tm) software will be ported to NCR's powerful Teradata(R) database and WorldMark(tm) family of servers by the first quarter of 1999. Orchestrate hides the complexity of parallel programming, allowing developers to use a visual development environment to more easily create high-performance, parallel versions of previously separated or sequential applications.

The partnership will enable data warehouse users to create and execute large-scale parallel applications that provide significant advances in performance and scalability. Most business intelligence applications are designed to run on only one processor at a time, and suffer sequential bottlenecks that significantly limit their ability to process large amounts of data. With the NCR/Torrent solution, applications will run in parallel, making it possible to analyze vast amounts of data to find answers to highly complex business problems that could not previously be solved.

"With its flagship Teradata database, NCR has long been the leader in scalable data warehousing," said Allen Razdow, president and CEO of Torrent Systems. "This is a natural and powerful partnership that enables our joint customers to build highly scalable applications that are tightly integrated with NCR's Teradata-based data warehouses."

NCR and its customers will use Orchestrate to develop high-performance data warehouse applications targeted to the needs of specific industries, for example:

-- Transportation -- Forecasting and optimization analysis to

maximize yield or revenue for airlines, railroads, and package

delivery service providers;

-- Telecommunications -- Leveraging call detail data to

micro-segment the consumer base and enable attrition-prevention

programs and better targeting of new products and services;

-- Financial -- Analyzing detailed data collected from all customer

interaction points (ATM, branch, Web, etc.) and other transaction

systems to develop individualized channel, product, and risk

strategies;

-- Retail -- Analyzing transaction-level sales data for advanced

market basket analysis and store- and item-level inventory

forecasting.

"Through NCR's partnership with Torrent, we are able to leverage the leading environment for creating high-performance, scalable applications for data warehouses," said Dan Harrington, vice president of Data Warehouse Marketing for NCR's Computer Systems Group. "Through the combined power of Orchestrate and Teradata, our joint customers will now be able to build highly scalable applications that were previously too costly and complex. We clearly see this technology as an emerging trend with many of our data warehouse customers."

About Torrent Systems

Established in 1993, Torrent Systems develops Orchestrate, the leading environment for developing and deploying high-performance business intelligence applications. Customers include industry-leaders like Sears, Roebuck and Co., United Airlines, CitiCorp Credit, and Harte Hanks. A privately held company headquartered in Cambridge (MA), Torrent has raised more than $13.5 million in venture and equity capital. Torrent is located at Five Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA, 02142 and can be reached by phone at 617-354-8484; by fax at 617-354-6767; and over the World Wide Web at www.torrent.com.

About NCR Corporation

NCR Corporation (NYSE:NCR) is a recognized world leader in scalable data warehousing, self-service and store automation solutions for the retail, financial and communications industries and other select markets. NCR's solutions are built on the foundation of the company's long-established industry knowledge and consulting expertise, value-adding software including Teradata, world-leading hardware technology, global customer support services and a complete line of consumable and media products. More information on NCR and its products can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.ncr.com.

NCR WorldMark is a trademark and Teradata is a registered trademark of NCR Corporation. Torrent is a registered trademark and Orchestrate is a trademark of Torrent Systems. All other brand and product names mentioned in this document are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of their respective holders.

CONTACT: Torrent Systems

Catherine Engelke, 617/354-8484 x140

engelke@torrent.com

OR

NCR Corporation

Anjeanette Steele, 619/485-2534

anjeanette.steele@sandiegoca.ncr.com

OR

Collaborative Communications

Karen McGrath, 617/520-9112

mcgrath@collaborative.com