Comshare Releases Version 4.0 of Its Web-Based Platform for Building Custom Business Intelligence Software Applications.

Business Editors, High Tech Writers

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 30, 2001

Comshare Decision 4.0 provides comprehensive set of tools to easily

develop uniquely powerful, user-focused BI applications

Comshare(R) Inc. (Nasdaq:CSRE) announced today that version 4.0 of its acclaimed business intelligence (BI) software platform, known as Comshare Decision(TM), is commercially available.

Decision is an open, extensible, and Web-based software platform that provides advanced BI reporting and analysis capabilities out of the box for multidimensional data.

"Decision makes making sense of business easy and insightful, reducing time-consuming and tedious searching by finding and alerting users to key issues buried within their data," said Dennis Ganster, Comshare president and CEO. "Comshare Decision can be customized to conform to any customer requirements. Hundreds of customers worldwide use it for functions like sales analysis, customer data analysis, performance measurement, and customer profitability analysis."

User-centric design and capabilities for real-time data

Comshare's BI platform gives users highly effective ways to obtain all the information they need for ad hoc reporting, multidimensional analysis, visualization of data across large hierarchies, and advanced exception alerting that proactively notifies users of problem areas. "With Decision 4.0, users now have a vast array of new reporting and analysis features along with a new builder that works in combination with standard web authoring tools for rapid application development. Unlike any other product available on the market today, Comshare Decision delivers superior functionality, interactivity, and analytic capability in a fully Web-based solution with an open architecture," Ganster added.

As a BI platform, Comshare Decision exploits Web technology, supports multiple data sources, includes greatly enhanced human factors and end-user functionality, features outstanding analytical capabilities, and includes more advanced data visualization techniques that make it a truly superior MPC solution for the unique, specialized OLAP (online analytical processing) solutions required by analysts, managers, and executives. "Power users get the benefits of a rich analysis environment, while casual users benefit from packaged reporting functions," Ganster explained. "All users access the same applications and consistent data in real time across the enterprise, regardless of location."

Comshare Decision 4.0 provides a variety of new grid and chart formatting features, enhanced filters on alerts, a new analysis controller for end user ad hoc tuning of exception criteria, standard relational stores for Decision metadata, and more. A new builder wizard makes it simpler than ever to set properties on Decision's analytic components which can then be embedded within web pages using standard web authoring tools. The new design also exploits Microsoft's .NET platform.

Comshare Decision 4.0 supports Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, IBM DB2 OLAP Server, Hyperion Essbase, Applix iTM1, and OLE DB for OLAP (ODBO) compliant databases. Comshare Decision is also a certified interface for SAP Business Information Warehouse. Comshare Decision is available as a departmental or enterprisewide solution. Departmental prices start at $16,000 for a four-concurrent user system and increase as more users are added for enterprisewide deployment.

About Comshare

Comshare Inc. is the leading provider of e-business software applications for management planning and control (MPC), which comprises planning, budgeting, financial consolidation, management reporting and analysis. Comshare's MPC applications deliver business-critical information over the Web that can be used to make sound planning and management decisions. In business for 35 years, Comshare is one of the top independent software companies, with customers around the world, many of which are Fortune 500 and Financial Times Top 1000 companies. Comshare is a Microsoft Data Warehousing Alliance Platinum Partner, an Oracle Business Alliance Partner, an IBM Business Partner, a mySAP.com Software Partner, and an Hyperion Alliance Partner. For more information on Comshare, call 1-800-922-7979, send e-mail to [e-mail] or visit Comshare's Web site at www.comshare.com.

Comshare(R) is a registered trademark of Comshare Inc. Comshare Decision(TM) is a trademark of Comshare Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.