Actuate Announces Open Analysis for Microsoft, Cognos and Business Objects

Business Wire, March 22, 1999

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 22, 1999--

Leading Enterprise Reporting Company

Offers Customers Integration with the

Widest Selection of Analysis Tools Available

Actuate(R) Software Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTU), the leader in Enterprise Reporting, today announced the introduction of Open Analysis to leading OLAP and analysis tools.

As part of Actuate's strategy to provide best-in-class solutions for enterprise reporting, Open Analysis will provide single-click integration of the Actuate Reporting System with complimentary Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) software tools from Microsoft, Cognos, Business Objects, Brio, and CorVu. Tight integration with these major OLAP and analysis tools gives Actuate's Enterprise Reporting customers the widest choice of analysis products in the industry.

Analysis tools requirements vary more than any other application. Therefore, enterprise customers are deploying a variety of analysis solutions to meet the varying demands of their OLAP users. Actuate's unique Transporter(TM) technology enables the company to offer a best-of-breed alternative to the more common "one size fits all" business intelligence suite. Actuate's Transporter technology gives Enterprise Reporting customers the ability to interactively extract select data from corporate reports and move this business critical information to the OLAP environment of their choice, with the click of a mouse.

"Increasingly, enterprise reporting is the prevailing approach to reporting for companies that will deliver corporate information to employees, customers and partners via the Web," said Jacqueline Sweeney, senior analyst at International Data Corporation. "Actuate's Open Analysis initiative will extend the applicability of the information to many OLAP and Excel 2000 users without requiring them to adopt a new tool."

An enterprise reporting system must be able to work with many different analysis tools, since analysis is often an application specific task. Different specialists within a single organization - financial and marketing analysts, for example - often use different types of analytical tools. The recent wave of integrated business intelligence suites, while attempting to offer a simple solution, is in reality locking customers into a limited product set, denying them choice and flexibility. In contrast, Actuate's Open Analysis offers an open, best-of-breed solution, which can be tailored to the individual needs of its customers, both today and in the future.

"Our customers deploy Actuate's enterprise reporting system to thousands of users in a wide variety of job functions within large organizations," said Nico Nierenberg, CEO of Actuate Software Corporation. "It would be unrealistic to expect those performing analysis to all use the same OLAP tool. Open Analysis offers a best-of-breed combination - the scalability and flexibility of Actuate's web-based Enterprise Reporting solution, along with the best OLAP solution for their specific application."

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

Transporter integration for Microsoft Excel and Brio are available today and can be downloaded for free from the Actuate web site at http://www.actuate.com. Integration with Cognos will be available at the end of the first quarter, integration with Business Objects and Microsoft Excel 2000 will be available the second quarter of this year, and CorVu will be available second half of 1999.

ABOUT THE ACTUATE REPORTING SYSTEM

The Actuate Reporting System allows organizations to rapidly develop, generate and distribute reports throughout the enterprise via the Internet, thereby increasing access to and the value of corporate data. The Actuate Reporting System's Report Server provides a scalable, dynamic reporting platform that can meet the Enterprise Reporting needs of organizations of any size. Actuate's Live Report Documents(R) feature rich interactive capabilities that enable users to more effectively access information. Actuate's adaptable environment allows developers to create reports from any data source and in any format required by users. Actuate's Web-based Report Server contains a unique report distribution technology called Virtual Report Distribution(TM) that scales to support thousands of users around the world accessing thousands of report pages. Architected specifically for the Internet, Actuate can be seamlessly integrated into any Web site, and ReportCast(R) technology can target the delivery of reports through Internet channels to categories of subscribed users.

ABOUT ACTUATE SOFTWARE CORPORATION

Actuate Software Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTU), the leader in Enterprise Reporting, is meeting the information access needs of the corporate enterprise. The Actuate Reporting System, including ReportCast, securely and efficiently delivers corporate reports to an enterprise of users. Actuate's customers include some of the largest financial services, telecommunications, health care and media companies. Software vendors reselling Actuate solutions include PeopleSoft, Siebel, Netscape Communications Corporation, Clarify, Vantive, Progress Software, Ariba and Ascend. Founded in 1993, and headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., Actuate has offices worldwide. For more information on Actuate, visit the company's Web site at http://www.actuate.com.