Progress Software Introduces Fly-Over Navigation, Advanced SKU-Level Processing and Enhanced Relevancy Tuning with Latest EasyAsk Product.

Nielsen Ratings Confirm Progress EasyAsk Product is the Best Tool for Increasing Shopper Conversion Rates; Good News for Online Retailers as Peak Shopping Season Fast Approaches

BEDFORD, Mass. -- Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), a supplier of leading technology to develop, deploy, integrate and manage business applications, today announced that the latest release of the Progress([R]) EasyAsk([R]) product includes more than 20 new features, such as Fly-Over Navigation, advanced SKU-level processing and enhanced search and query relevancy tuning and management. These latest enhancements enable retailers to refine search capabilities of their online, in-store and catalog inventory, ensuring their customers can quickly find and purchase products, increasing their overall shopping experience and satisfaction and ensuring repeat visits. The Progress EasyAsk product enables online merchants to increase conversation rates for online sales and drive higher revenues throughout the year, including the peak holiday shopping season.

ProgressEasyAsk products provide natural language search and query capabilities that empower business and consumer users to quickly find and retrieve critical information from multiple enterprise data sources.

According to the most recent Nielsen ratings, four of the top five retail Web sites with the highest visitor conversion rates use the Progress EasyAsk product for product search, including Lane Bryant with a 24 percent visitor conversion rate and KingSizeDirect with a 20 percent conversion rate.

In addition, the Progress EasyAsk product maintained its significant leadership position in Nielsen's Q3 visitor conversion rate rankings with an average conversion rate of 6.8, outpacing its closet competitor, iPhrase, by nearly a full point. Other search vendors included in the Nielsen rankings were Endeca, Google, Active Decisions, Mercado and FAST.

"The recent Nielsen ratings prove that the EasyAsk product is the most powerful search tool for enabling online retailers to increase sales conversion rates through highly intelligent product search and a clear, consistent presentation of search results," said Larry Harris, vice president and general manager, Progress EasyAsk products. "Business applications and the IT infrastructure that support them must create a retail ecosystem that adapts to continuous upgrades, changes and expansions. Progress' proven technology gives retailers the visibility they need to optimize operational agility and efficiency, improve business processes and deliver customer experiences that foster loyalty and greater lifetime value."

Highlights of the Progress EasyAsk 9.6 product include:

* Advanced Usability with Fly-Over Navigation - Displays product search and browse results with fewer gestures, less typing and a reduced number of mouse clicks. Results of desired products are displayed as the user is typing or hovering their mouse over the item;

* Expanded SKU-Level Processing - Provides the capability to search both the individual product and multiple SKU levels simultaneously. This delivers greater specificity to a search rather than a list of similar and often irrelevant items;

* Enhanced Relevancy Tuning and Management - Provides retailers with additional tuning options such as phrase matching, column weighting/ranking and value-based relevancy;

* Advanced Data Cleansing - Supports advanced data cleansing options, which overcomes irregular product information/descriptions;

* Globalized Language Support - Retailers can now go to market faster using different languages;

* Broadened Industry-Specific Support - Pre-defined vertical market dictionaries, thesauruses and extended attributes tied to a particular vertical market makes it easier to match search requests with relevant merchandise (i.e., apparel, consumer and household goods, education and manufacturing suppliers, outdoors and technology).

About Progress Software Corporation

Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS) provides application infrastructure software for the development, deployment, integration and management of business applications. Our goal is to maximize the benefits of information technology while minimizing its complexity and total cost of ownership. Progress can be reached at www.progress.com or [phone].

Progress and EasyAsk are registered trademarks of Progress Software Corporation or one of its subsidiaries or affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Any other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.