Comshare to leave OLAP Council.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 28, 1997--

Decision Support Application Vendor Announces

Intention to Exit Database Council

OLAP Council founding member Comshare, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSRE), The Decision Support Company(TM), today announced that it has resigned from the group, having achieved the goals it set for itself.

"We are extremely satisfied with the direction and success of the council," said Wally Wrathall, president and chief executive officer. "However, as the only member of the Council without its own OLAP (On-Line Analytical Processing) database, our goals were different from the other members of the Council. As an applications company, our mission was to promote the broad awareness and acceptance of OLAP in the software industry, and get a more robust set of database vendors involved. With the increasing interest in this technology by more and more companies, including companies like Oracle and Microsoft, we believe we have accomplished that goal."

DSS Applications for Multiple Databases

"As well as the awareness and acceptance of OLAP, we wanted to support development of a common methodology for OLAP databases," explains Steve Tonissen, senior vice president of marketing. "We wanted to be certain that our decision support applications would be open to multiple databases, in much the same way SQL standards insure openness in the relational world."

Comshare's strategy is to provide robust decision support applications to its chosen industries, including Retail, Consumer Goods, Financial Services, Utilities, Manufacturing, Energy and Services organizations. Within an industry, many applications across various functions are strategic. Comshare's decision application methodologies provide customers with applications that drive competitiveness and improve profitability.

"Comshare's application focus is illustrated by our methodologies," continues Tonissen. "Many years of experience and our diverse customer base have given us a deep understanding of the decision process and the needs of our customers when developing decision support applications."

Comshare's decision application methodology, called Comshare Decision Map(TM) (DMAP), is a result of that thorough understanding. This methodology accurately defines the business problem at hand, the business need, and the correct solution to the business problem. However, a powerful methodology is only one part of a complete application solution. "It is Comshare's unique ability to deliver `whole product' solutions that differentiates us," explained Tonissen. "Databases themselves do not deliver successful applications. Applications need databases, other innovative technology (like Comshare's Detect & Alert(R) technology), and the support mechanisms required for large, mission critical applications. Comshare delivers high value-add to the databases through application knowledge resident in the application servers, and through extensive application and industry knowledge pervasive through our network of Value-Add Consultant organizations, and our own consulting organization,."

Comshare's Application Architecture

As the council has become more productive and moved forward with its strategy with a published API, Comshare has focused on its own strategy of delivering high value Decision Support Applications based on the best technology. Announced last September, Comshare's Application Architecture (CAA) allows the company to move swiftly to the correct technology or database for an application. The recent partnerships with Oracle and Applix for those company's databases are testaments to that architecture.

"We have added a combination of relational and multi-dimensional database technologies as a strategic direction for our applications," stated Dennis Ganster, chief technology officer and senior vice president of development. "We did this in response to a clear market demand and through technical breakthroughs which have proven that we can deliver competitive DSS applications on a range of more widely accepted database technology." For this reason, and because the API is not yet in use by many database vendors, Comshare has chosen not to implement the API in its architecture. "The end result is that we need more than just OLAP openness. Our CAA strategy has proven to be a faster way to achieve our goals," concluded Ganster.

"We are proud of the role we played helping to organize and open the OLAP world," concluded Wrathall. "It is simply time for us to allow the database vendors to continue their work and for Comshare to focus on its applications."

About Comshare

Comshare is The Decision Support Company. Comshare develops, markets, and supports complete client/server decision support applications. Comshare's software applications are designed to improve business analysis, planning, and operations for effective decision making, enhanced competitiveness, and improved profits. Comshare's application software is popular among major corporations in many industries, with particular concentration in financial services, utilities, manufacturing, energy, services, retail and consumer goods industries. One of the top 50 independent software companies, Comshare has over 3, 000 customers worldwide, many of which are Fortune 1000 and Financial Times Top 1000 companies. Comshare, Inc. is a Microsoft Solution Provider.

For more information about Comshare products and services, call 1-800-922-7979 or see our home page on the World Wide Web at http://www.comshare.com .

Comshare and Detect and Alert are registered trademarks; The Decision Support Company, Comshare Application Architecture and Decision Map are trademarks of Comshare, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

CONTACT: Comshare

Doug Hockstad, 313/994-4800

or

Eiler Communications

Larry Eiler, 313/761-3399