Ascential Software Partners with Torrent Systems to Deliver First Enterprise-Level, Fully Scalable Data Warehousing Solution.

Business/Technology Editors

WESTBORO, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 1, 2001

Strategic Partnership Increases Speed of Information Throughput and

Eliminates Practical Volume Constraints

Ascential(TM) Software, Inc., the leading provider of Information Asset Management solutions, today announced a strategic partnership with Torrent(R) Systems, Inc. that will create the first-of-its-kind fully scalable data warehousing solution, allowing companies to integrate, transform and share massive amounts of corporate data for business intelligence, customer relationship management (CRM) and e-commerce applications. The two companies have integrated their flagship products, Ascential's DataStage(R) XE, the industry-leading data integration solution, and Torrent's Orchestrate(TM), a component-based framework for scalable applications, and are introducing this capability to selected customers today.

This partnership is the latest advance in Ascential's strategy to lead the market for Information Asset Management solutions with highly scalable and flexible information infrastructure offerings. Ascential's DataStage product already supports parallel processing, allowing multiple streams of data to be processed simultaneously at the design and execution level; this latest partnership with Torrent, coupled with additional DataStage product enhancements currently underway, substantially enhances Ascential's already strong market leadership for speed and scalability in enterprise scale applications. Likewise, Torrent has set a course to deliver a component-based framework to support the CRM applications market, providing powerful scaling capabilities to process clickstream and transactional data.

"The exponential growth of enterprise information, especially in those industries with extremely large amounts of consumer transactions such as telecommunications, financial services and retail, have created unprecedented demand for massive-volume information management," said Mikael Wipperfeld, vice president of marketing, Ascential Software. "Many of our customers need to load vast amounts of data from their transactional and e-business systems to their data warehouses and analytic applications within a very small window of time. Until now, there has simply been no other solution on the market that will achieve this level of information delivery in this little time."

Previously, hardware and software limitations rendered it nearly impossible to manage the increasingly large volume of valuable information gathered daily via enterprise databases, so business users have not been able to fully analyze a consolidated set of information assets across regional boundaries, lines of business or between merged and acquired entities. As a result, companies often forego cross-selling opportunities, fail to optimize pricing, miscalculate forecasts and lose valuable customers.

"Enterprises with huge databases of consumer information have historically been under-served. The partnership of Ascential and Torrent addresses that imbalance -- these organizations now have access to a solution that enables them to quickly and easily collect, process, and distribute massive amounts of data," said Guy Creese, research director of Internet analytics at Aberdeen Group. "This type of solution can have a significant impact on analytical efficiency and hence the bottom line. As such, it is a very positive move for both companies and their customers."

"In 2001 we intend to further augment our Orchestrate solution with the most innovative, best-of-breed enterprise-scale applications to predict customer behavior and enhance profitability," said Rob Utzschneider, founder and vice president, market development, Torrent Systems. "The combination of Ascential's and Torrent's enterprise-class solutions is an important first step to effectively capture the cost saving and revenue generation opportunities executives are seeking from the tremendous volumes of data they are juggling today."

In-house testing of the interface between DataStage XE and Orchestrate has shown that companies can cut volume constraints, time processing requirements and speed of throughput considerably. The companies' goal is to speed data warehouse extraction, transformation and loading by two to four times - or more - depending on customer configurations. Business benefits include improved customer service, more targeted marketing and sales programs, and substantial increases in productivity alongside decreased cost of programming and analysis time.

Torrent's Orchestrate is a customizable component-based framework with powerful parallel processing capabilities to enable truly scalable transactional reporting and clickstream analysis applications. Ascential's DataStage XE performs the vital functions necessary to extract, transform and integrate data from a wide variety of enterprise and e-business systems into data warehouses, data marts, and analytic applications, providing comprehensive meta data management and data quality assurance capabilities.

About Ascential Software, Inc.

Ascential Software, Inc. is the leading provider of Information Asset Management solutions to the Global 2000. Customers use Ascential products to turn vast amounts of disparate, unrefined data into reusable information assets that drive business success. Ascential's unique framework for Information Asset Management enables customers to easily collect, validate, organize, administer and deliver information assets to realize more value from their enterprise data, reduce costs and increase profitability. Headquartered in Westboro, Mass., Ascential has offices worldwide and supports more than 1500 customers, including Fujitsu-Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Pfizer, BizRate.com, SC Johnson, France Telecom, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Subaru of America, Inc., in such industries as telecommunications, insurance, financial services, healthcare, media/entertainment and retail. Ascential is an independent operating company of Informix Corporation (NASDAQ: IFMX) and can be found on the Web at www.ascentialsoftware.com.

About Torrent Systems, Inc.

Torrent, headquartered in Cambridge, MA, makes it possible to build, deploy and manage enterprise-scale custom applications that predict customer behavior and enhance customer profitability. Torrent's large-scale data transformation and analytical solutions offer the unique ability to analyze unprecedented volumes of clickstream and transaction data with speed and unrestricted complexity. As a result, companies can understand and anticipate the needs of their customers and, in turn, generate tens - even hundreds - of millions of dollars in return on investment. As a result, Torrent now provides the infrastructure for some of the world's most valuable applications. For more information about Torrent and its products, please call 888-339-4605 or visit www.torrent.com.

(c)2001 Ascential Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Ascential(TM) is a trademark of Ascential Software, Inc. and may be registered in other jurisdictions. The following are trademarks of Informix Corporation or its affiliates, one or more of which may be registered in the U.S. or other jurisdictions: DataStage(R).