Actuate Offers the Industry's First Business Intelligence Center of Excellence Service; KeyCorp Centralizes Business Intelligence to Improve Business Agility.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 10, 2003

Actuate Corporation (Nasdaq:ACTU), the world leader in scalable Business Intelligence Applications, today announced the Actuate e.Services Business Intelligence Center of Excellence (CoE) Service which provides the tools, methodology and best practices required to centralize Business Intelligence (BI) within large enterprises. The Actuate CoE Service enables organizations to set up and operate centralized Business Intelligence technologies and utilize a repository of Business Intelligence knowledge. Creating a CoE allows companies to decrease technology costs, increase organizational efficiency, more quickly comply with reporting regulations, and improve overall business agility.

Creating a CoE addresses the needs of many organizations to maximize hardware, software and highly skilled personnel, while also broadening the use of Business Intelligence applications to customers, partners, new departments and all types of employees. Companies under pressure to meet the reporting requirements within new regulations such as the Sarbanes Oxley Act are using Business Intelligence applications to gain organizational insight and accountability at multiple levels. A CoE also enables the implementation of BI standards across the organization to ensure data and infrastructure are appropriately integrated, eliminating islands of information and increasing the access to readily usable information at all levels of the company. Streamlined communication between business units and IT allows information requirements of all users to be met, which enables business goals to be more quickly and easily achieved. By creating a CoE, companies can quickly implement additional Business Intelligence applications while controlling the cost of technology deployments through the re-use of technology, processes, and hardware across multiple applications.

"It has been a tremendous challenge for our IT department to keep current on the latest Business Intelligence tools in order to implement the best solutions for each user group," said Brett Uytiepo, manager of Business Intelligence production support at KeyCorp. "A Center of Excellence enables us to centralize technology as well as create a repository of BI solution knowledge. Creating a CoE has enabled us to provide timely information to users throughout the KeyCorp organization and thus, maintain our competitive advantage."

"Success with Business Intelligence requires a coordinated effort across the dimensions of people, process, technology, and data," said Allen Bonde, president of Allen Bonde Group, Inc. "Our research has shown a BI Center of Excellence offers the means to coordinate that effort by creating a common set of resources, models and tools to meet the needs of the broadest set of business needs -- while taking advantage of existing organization expertise, standards and infrastructure."

Actuate e.Services Center of Excellence Service

The Actuate e.Services Center of Excellence (CoE) Service is designed to provide customers with a service to produce the tools, methodology and best practices required to implement a flexible and efficient centralized Business Intelligence delivery framework. The CoE service provides an implementation roadmap for enterprises to rapidly realize the benefits of a CoE by leveraging Actuate e.Services methodology, product expertise, and industry knowledge.

Beginning with a one-week Planning and Roadmap strategy engagement, Actuate e.Services coordinates efforts with the interdependent CoE functional groups including infrastructure planning, operations, business facing IT, application development and executive sponsors to plan, strategize and implement a Business Intelligence Center of Excellence. This analysis is done in partnership with consultants from the Allen Bonde Group, a leading independent research and management consulting firm focused on enterprise software best practices and the impact of emerging business models and technologies. The CoE implementation service options include the configuration of server resources and operations procedures to support a shared services environment, the creation of re-usable security integration and application integration components, the development of a system-level management dashboard and alert tracking mechanism and the creation of a capacity planning and charge back model. Actuate's experienced e.Services professionals use a proven methodology to ensure that each customer's CoE implementation objectives are met.

"Companies are realizing that different forms of reporting and analysis are all part of the Business Intelligence continuum," said Matt Kuckuk, vice president of e.Services for Actuate. "Creating a Center of Excellence is a proven, yet flexible approach to obtain the strategic benefits of Business Intelligence in all its forms, while maintaining control of costs. We've seen the tremendous benefits that a CoE can bring to an organization, which is why we've decided to offer a service to help our customers set up and operate successful Centers of Excellence."

About Actuate Corporation

Actuate Corporation is the world leader in scalable Business Intelligence applications. Actuate's Information Application Platform is the foundation on which Global 9000 organizations (companies with annual revenues greater than $1 billion) and packaged application software vendors create reporting and analytics applications that scale to empower 100 percent of their user community inside and outside the firewall. These Information Applications include Business Performance Management (BPM) dashboards, Information Portals as well as business analytic, enterprise reporting and spreadsheet reporting applications. Information Applications built with Actuate enable companies to increase their business agility, improve customer and partner relationships, adhere to corporate governance policies, and increase revenues while leveraging existing technology assets. When tested against other business intelligence products, Actuate's Information Application Platform has been proven to offer industry-leading scalability, the best performance, lowest Total Cost of Ownership. Actuate has over 2,200 direct customers and 300 OEM partners in a range of industries including financial services, pharmaceuticals, insurance, and distribution services, as well as the government sector.

Founded in 1993, Actuate has headquarters in South San Francisco, Calif., and has offices worldwide. For more information on Actuate, visit the company's Web site at http://www.actuate.com.

Actuate is a registered trademark of Actuate Corporation. e.Reporting and e.Spreadsheet are trademarks of Actuate Corporation. Other company names and trademarks are trademarks of their respective companies.