Broder Bros. Deploys Progress EasyAsk for Integrated Search and Online Merchandising; Advanced eCommerce Search Capabilities Aim to Improve Online Shopping Experience and Leverage Customer Behavior for More Personalized Merchandising

Business Wire, May 15, 2006

BEDFORD, Mass. -- The Progress EasyAsk Division, a leading provider of intelligent search, navigation and online merchandising solutions, and an operating unit of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), announced today that Broder Bros. Co., a leading wholesaler of name-brand apparel and imprintable products, has added EasyAsk's search and guided navigation to two of its Web sites - www.broderbros.com and www.alphashirt.com.

Broder sells imprintable sportswear items such as golf shirts, hats and fleece jackets to the promotional products industry and decorators of imprintable apparel through online and catalog sales channels. Prior to deploying the EasyAsk(R) product, Broder's online customers were required to enter either a product style number or product brand in order to find desired items, meaning that shoppers needed to be familiar with Broder's inventory of available merchandise. Today, with the EasyAsk technology, customers can conduct more intelligent searches by typing in product requests just as they would ask a customer service representative when placing a call to one of Broder's call centers. For example, "red fleece" will bring up relevant items that can then be easily narrowed down by selecting additional attributes such as brand, size, or price.

Broder, a long-standing partner of Progress Software, saw benefit in leveraging solutions within the Progress family of products and was impressed with EasyAsk's core product functionality, ease of implementation, rapid return on investment and successful track record with leading apparel retailers.

"The fact that dozens of brand-name online retailers have deployed the EasyAsk product was a huge selling point," said Mike Fabrico, Vice President, Information Technology for Broder Bros. Co. "Most of our customers have specific products in mind when they visit our site, however many have requested a better way to search and navigate for products. Ensuring our entire product catalog is easily accessible to all customers is critical to the growth of our business. With improved search functionality in place, we expect a measurable increase in the number of online sales orders."

The EasyAsk product enables online retailers to have more intelligent customer interactions by providing a merchandising tool built and refined based on customers' search and navigation behaviors. Broder plans to expand its use of the EasyAsk product through more personalized and dynamic merchandising activities, and by leveraging customer data to cross-sell and up-sell across multiple channels. This will enable Broder to promote certain products based on customer preferences, item inventory and special business offers, resulting in increased conversion rates and average order size.

"Our eCommerce customers are committed to providing the best shopping experience for their customers and continuously evolving merchandising and marketing activities," said Larry Harris, founder of EasyAsk, Inc. and Vice President and General Manager of the Progress EasyAsk Division. "By adding integrated search and navigation capabilities from EasyAsk, our customers not only provide quick product access to their customers, but also obtain key product information that can be used to drive sales through increased conversion rates."

About the Progress EasyAsk Division

The Progress EasyAsk Division provides next-generation data search and query technology solutions that empower non-technical users to quickly find and retrieve critical business information from multiple enterprise data sources. In addition, EasyAsk provides an integrated search, navigation and dynamic online merchandising platform that optimizes the shopping experience on many of the world's most successful eCommerce sites. Progress EasyAsk Division is an operating unit of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), a global software industry leader. More information about EasyAsk is available at http://www.easyask.com or at 1-800-425-8200.

EasyAsk is a registered trademark of Progress Development Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Any other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.