Best Software Leverages Microsoft's SQL Server 7.0 OLAP Services to Create Integrated Platform for Analytic Applications.

RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 5, 1999--

Financial Modeling Functions Draw Added Value From Knosys

ProClarity, SQL Server 7.0 Framework

There's a big difference between supporting a standard and taking full advantage of it, says Dan Quigg, who has guided Best Software's entry into the analytic applications arena by extending the company's current budgeting and planning suite of software products.

Quigg, vice president of analytics products, is referring to the relationship between Best! Imperativ Active Planner(TM) and Microsoft's SQL Server 7.0 OLAP (online analytical processing) Services.

With its announcement Tuesday of Active Planner, Best Software continues its leadership role in delivering sophisticated financial planning solutions to a middle market that up until now has neither had the resources nor the incentive to implement them.

OLAP Services comes as a standard component of SQL Server 7.0. Best! Imperativ Active Planner makes OLAP even easier to use for financial planners through a seamless integration that allows planners to automatically send plan and actual data into Microsoft OLAP cubes, multi-dimensional data structures for advanced analysis.

Additionally, users can make changes to plan data inside the OLAP cubes and have the results automatically "write-back" to the budget plan.

The issue of visualizing multi-dimensional data -- for both analysis and communication to others -- is further enhanced by an OEM alliance with Knosys Inc., which has licensed its ProClarity(TM) product to Best Software. The functionality of ProClarity is packaged in the Best! Imperativ Active Planner Analyzer module, which can be used to view and analyze complex data relationships.

"ProClarity was designed specifically for Microsoft OLAP Services, and its integration with Active Planner is another example of providing an innovative capability without re-inventing a solution from scratch," Quigg said.

Best! Imperativ Active Planner aggregates data from any enterprise database for analysis within an intuitive Best Software model that enables:

--   a granular comparison of enterprise performance vs. a plan
--   an analysis of variances at any level -- business unit,
     department, product, sales territory or even an individual
     salesperson, for example
--   the capability to ask "what-if" and "what-now" questions, then
     view the impact of possible corrective actions on any or all plan
     components
--   the capability to "close the loop" on the planning process by
     supporting continual refinement to the corporate budget and
     easily writing back changes to all plan components

The product leverages OLE-DB data interfaces built into the Microsoft framework to access any enterprise database, as well as providing ODBC compliance. Data can seamlessly be transferred to OLAP Services cubes for analysis within Active Planner and dissected using the Analyzer module.

Although competitors may also support SQL Server 7.0 and OLAP Services, the Best Software solution is likely to be differentiated for some time, in Quigg's opinion. He bases his assumption on the way Best! Imperativ Active Planner is integrated with enterprise operational systems to collect current financial and non-financial data for near real-time analysis in multidimensional structures.

The traditional OLAP rationale, in contrast, calls for collecting, cleansing, sifting and independently storing data for analysis in a process that is relatively time consuming and complex despite Microsoft's success in simplifying the procedures, he added.

"Active Planner is a streamlined, application-specific use of OLAP that focuses on collaborative budgeting and planning by financial and non-financial users alike, who need to make critical decisions far more frequently than the typical plan cycle," Quigg said.

"We have leveraged that portion of OLAP Services best-suited to our application, and, in that regard, we are adding value to SQL Server 7.0, just as it adds value to Active Planner. In short, we believe that our packaging and pricing of planning and analytic applications will revolutionize the planning and budgeting processes of middle-market enterprises."

About Best Software

Best Software, with more than 50,000 customers worldwide and offices in the United States, Canada and Europe, is a leading provider of corporate resource management solutions which help organizations to better manage their people, assets and planning.

Its scalable, cost-effective solutions complement core financial management systems and support the full spectrum of Microsoft platforms, including Windows(R) 95, Windows(R) 98, Windows(R) NT and BackOffice(R). For further information, call 800/368-2499, send an e-mail to [e-mail] or access the company's Web site at www.bestsoftware.com.

Note to Editors: The Best logo and Best Software are registered trademarks, and Best! Imperativ Analytics and Best! Imperativ Active Planner are trademarks of Best Software Inc. Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, SQL 7.0 and BackOffice are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.