Gruppo PAM Selects Sunopsis to Aid Business Development; Retail Giant Chooses Innovative Data Integration Architecture to Automate Processes.

BURLINGTON, Mass. -- Sunopsis, a technology innovator in the data integration market, today announced that Gruppo PAM, Italy's largest supermarket chain, has selected its ETL product. Gruppo PAM will use Sunopsis Data Conductor to address its data integration needs.

Gruppo PAM will use Sunopsis' innovative E-LT (Extract, then Load and Transform) product for automating key processes and assisting with data management projects across the company's diverse business lines. This will include migrating applications from mainframe systems to an open environment, as well as loading their data warehouse that provides a 360-degree analysis of the different business area activities.

The retail giant, which has revenues of approximately $3 billion and over 10,000 employees, coordinates purchasing, logistics, administration and control, legal affairs and the development of the information systems for the different sales channels. Channels include hypermarkets, supermarkets, airport duty free stores, convenience stores, and restaurants.

Pierangelo Tripoli, Gruppo PAM's director of IT, said: "We need to focus our activity on the strategies and projects decided by senior management, and also on the requirements for offering more services to our clients. We are in a continuous search for innovative, flexible and reliable software that can assist us in the automation of our processes."

The retailer is planning to extend its use of Sunopsis products when implementing an Enterprise Data Hub that will use Sunopsis for the asynchronous, real-time feeding of the data warehouse from the different source systems. This effort will leverage the ability of Sunopsis' Data Conductor to be extended with other components of Sunopsis' leading integration solution, the Sunopsis Active Integration Platform. Enterprise data will be deployed in a standard format, making it available for all applications through a public interface, thus implementing a truly modular information system.

Romano Gervasuti, Gruppo PAM's data warehouse project manager, explained: "We chose Sunopsis because of its innovative E-LT architecture which allows us to avoid the bottlenecks traditionally associated with engine-based ETL products. While traditional ETL products use proprietary engines, require acquisition of dedicated hardware and training of IT personnel, Sunopsis immediately demonstrated its productivity, its ease of use and quick learning curve."

Yves de Montcheuil, director of product marketing at Sunopsis, said: "The retail sector is a key vertical market for Sunopsis - mostly because it is dealing with massive amounts of transaction data which needs to be processed efficiently to provide actionable information. As such, we have invested in developing our technology to ensure that it truly alleviates the pressure points faced by the industry. The contract with an enterprise on the scale of Gruppo PAM illustrates both the importance of data integration for retailers, as well as Sunopsis' ability to meet the needs of large scale projects."

About Sunopsis:

Sunopsis empowers companies to improve business responsiveness by placing the right data at the right place, at the right time. The company's next-generation data integration products allow organisations to efficiently manage and share data from disparate data sources without the complexity and cost of traditional data integration solutions. With more than 450 customers worldwide, and a global presence, Sunopsis has headquarters in France, the United States and Singapore.

About Gruppo PAM

Gruppo PAM is one of the leading modern Italian retail companies, with revenue of 2.5billion euros and more than 10,000 employees. Since its inception with its first supermarket in 1958, Gruppo PAM has developed into a national retailer made of four independent companies: Supermaercati PAM, Panorama, PAM Franchising with the META and PAM Club brands and IN's Mercato. Gecos, the financial control holding of Gruppo PAM, is also operating in international retail through the Nuance Group (world leader in duty-free) and the restaurant industry through CIBIS.