Retail Solution Provider Gets New Identity and Begins Push to Broaden Market Penetration; Radius Retail Renamed to Transatlantic Software Corporation.

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 14, 1999--

Leading retail solutions developer Radius Retail announced today a new company name together with the launch of a new marketing initiative to broaden its market penetration in the mid-tier retail market. The new corporate identity follows on the heels of its successful management buyout in February 1999. With immediate effect, the former subsidiary of UK IT conglomerate Radius plc will trade as "Transatlantic Software Corporation" in North America, the UK, and South Africa. The company will continue to operate from its existing locations: The USA head office in Boston; the North American development center in Toronto; and UK operations in Milton Keynes and Edinburgh.

The new name and corporate identity will be officially unveiled in the UK at a customer information day to be held on September 16, 1999, at Weston Park, Telford, Shropshire. This event marks the start of a major campaign to promote Transatlantic's products and services to a broader range of customers within the retail sector in Europe and North America.

"The management team recognized the opportunity for significant growth within our retail market place and we were confident that we would have more impact focusing 100% on retail as an independent company rather than being part of a larger organization with diverse markets. The MBO will allow us to focus our resources on achieving long term strategic goals within the retail market sector", says company president, Mike Burge. "We have over 20 years experience working exclusively with retail organizations, and are well established in many areas of the industry. With the injection of new funds, the company is now able to invest in developing new technology solutions that will deliver even higher performance and more innovative software products to the international retailing community."

Earlier this year, Transatlantic Software (as Radius Retail) successfully launched SQL-Retail as an out-of-the-box solution designed for middle tier retailers and incorporating Microsoft SQL Server 7.0. Following the launch, Waikiki Trader Group is now live with SQL-Retail and Aubuchon Hardware, with over 140 stores in New England, will be live before the years end. The first implementation of SQL-Retail outside of the USA will be at Glyn Webb, a chain of home improvement centers based in Oldham, England. (SQL-Retail will be officially launched in the UK on 1st October 1999).

In addition to recent success with SQL-Retail, Transatlantic Software has also just completed a very successful implementation of OpenRSA at Hard Rock Cafe's headquarters in Orlando, Florida. OpenRSA is the sister product to SQL-Retail and is designed for large retailers who require more customization while retaining the strength of a package solution. OpenRSA is designed to support retailers running thousands of stores.

A focused marketing campaign is planned for the fourth quarter of 1999 in order to build awareness of Transatlantic's new corporate identity in Europe and North America.

Note to editors

Transatlantic Software Corporation is one of the leading developers of software solutions for retail management (merchandising, inventory management and data warehouse), with more than 20 years experience of working exclusively with leading global retailers such as The Body Shop, Kmart, CompUSA, Canadian Tire, IKEA, Tie Rack, Dixons, Tesco, Sainsburys, PACCAR Automotive, and many others.

The company has established its products in both soft lines (apparel and footwear) and hard lines (hardware, auto parts, home entertainment). Transatlantic's focus is on leading edge application development and top quality customer support. The company plans to broaden the customer base of SQL-Retail through approved application resellers who can demonstrate to retailers the many advantages of SQL-Retail.

OpenRSA is a comprehensive, fully integrated retail management system for large retail organizations typically requiring the flexibility to make significant enhancements without losing the benefits of a package approach.

SQL-Retail is an out-of-the-box merchandising and data warehouse solution which can be deployed without modification, making it ideal for resellers and POS vendors to add into their existing product lines and offer a complete solution.

Both OpenRSA and SQL-Retail include a comprehensive packaged retail data warehouse. This comes with advanced Retail-Workbench modeling tools designed for Microsoft Excel that link to the data warehouse and provides flexible what-if analysis capabilities.