Netezza User Community Puts Performance First.

Customers, Partners and Prospects Polled at Recent International Netezza User Conference '06 Provide Insight into the Key Benefits of Data Warehouse Appliances

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. -- Netezza, the global data warehouse appliance market leader, today announced the results of a survey conducted at its second annual international User Conference held last month in Boston. The survey, which polled more than 360 conference attendees, provides further evidence that a data warehouse appliance approach is most effective in meeting the performance, scalability and cost-of-ownership challenges of data-intensive organizations.

In an open-ended question asking, "What issues or challenges do you see appliances addressing in your organization," respondents identified performance (48%), simplicity and cost of ownership (24%), scalability (17%) and helping users and customers (11%) as the primary benefits delivered by appliances. Some representative respondent answers included:

* "Appliances can scale to bring enterprise data warehouses (EDWs) to a whole new generation of enterprises"

* "Enables our customers to innovate in their business"

* "Delivering increased performance and analytic requirements with increased data volumes and requirements, while reducing support and administration overheads"

* "We should be able to make informed decisions faster"

Beyond the recognition by the Netezza User Community of the critical role of analytic performance, industry analysts have also drawn a direct relationship between analytic performance and business success. In a recent article entitled "The Effect of the BI Application on Business Performance,1" Nigel Pendse, independent industry analyst and lead author of "The OLAP Report" and "The OLAP Surveys," states that "there actually is a measurable impact on business performance as query performance declines," and that "variations in query performance have more effect on the business benefit index than any other factor."

"Netezza pioneered the data warehouse appliance approach because we saw a need for organizations to achieve faster, deeper and more affordable analytics on their growing data volumes to better understand their business and customers," said Ellen Rubin, vice president of marketing, Netezza. "The Netezza Performance Server([R]) appliance has dramatically changed the way companies leverage analytics for competitive advantage. Performance is a key ingredient to that success."

The Netezza Performance Server (NPS([R])) system is the market-leading data warehouse appliance, built specifically to analyze terabytes of detailed data 10 to 100 times faster than existing data warehouse options, at half the cost. The NPS system stores, filters and processes terabytes of records within a single unit, analyzing only the relevant information for each query. Netezza has placed the CPU power next to the data, allowing the NPS system to speed through processes that would occupy most data warehouse systems for hours, or even days, thereby enabling dramatic increases in productivity across the organization. Customers who have recognized the benefits of Netezza's approach include Ahold, Amazon.com, Cingular Wireless, CNET Networks, Debenhams, Epsilon, Orange UK, Premier, Inc., Ryder System, Inc., Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation, The Carphone Warehouse and The TJX Companies.

For more information about the international Netezza User Conference '06, please visit (http://www.netezza.com/releases/2006/release100306.htm).

About Netezza Corporation

Netezza, the global data warehouse appliance market leader, enables enterprises to make all of their data actionable - quickly, simply and affordably. The Netezza Performance Server family of products delivers breakthrough performance, unmatched ease of deployment and operation, and innovative flexibility and scalability at a fraction of the cost of traditional data warehouse solutions. By architecturally integrating database, server and storage within a single appliance, the NPS system delivers 10 to 100 times the performance at half the cost of existing systems. Based in Framingham, Mass., Netezza has offices in Washington, DC, the United Kingdom and Asia Pacific. The Company is backed by leading venture capital firms, including Matrix Partners, Charles River Ventures, Battery Ventures, Orange, Sequoia Capital and Meritech Capital Partners. For more information about Netezza, please visit www.netezza.com.

1 "The Effect of the BI Application on Business Performance," DM Direct Special Report, March 28, 2006, (http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleId=1051283). From the OLAP Surveys, Pendse came up with a weighted basket of eight possible business benefits related to the use of a BI product. From these responses, Pendse calculated a weighted score for each benefit, and then combined them into a composite business benefit index (BBI) - in other words, a key performance indicator (KPI) of how business performance has been impacted by the use of the product.