Torrent Systems and Fingerhut Named Finalists in Intelligent Enterprise Magazine's 1999 RealWare Awards.CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 21, 1999-- Torrent Systems Torrent Systems, originally named Applied Parallel Technologies, was a parallel computing software company founded in 1993 by Rob Utzschneider and Ed Zyszkowski. The company's major product was a parallel flow-based programming system called Orchestrate. , Inc., announced today that it was named a finalist in Intelligence Enterprise magazine's prestigious RealWare Awards. The selection recognized the innovative and exceptional information technology (IT) solution built by Fingerhut Companies using Torrent's flagship product A primary product of a company, which is typically why the company was founded and/or what made it well known. For example, MS-DOS, Windows and the Microsoft Office suite have been flagship products of Microsoft. CorelDRAW is a flagship product of Corel Corporation. , Orchestrate. Torrent was a finalist in the Best Decision Support for Business Intelligence category. Fingerhut used Orchestrate to enable a mail stream optimization (MSO (1) (Multiple System Operator) Typically refers to a cable TV organization that owns more than one cable system, but it may refer to an operator of only one system. ) program that would allow the company to process the massive amounts of data it needed to optimize customer selection over multiple catalogs rather than individual catalogs. With trillions of possible customer/catalog combinations, Fingerhut originally estimated that the system would take more than 20 days to complete processing--an unacceptable length of time for a company that mails more than one million catalogs every day. Using Orchestrate, Fingerhut was able to execute the MSO in parallel, cutting runtime to less than ten hours. As a result of the Orchestrate-enabled MSO, Fingerhut discovered methods for dramatically cutting its catalog distribution list without decreasing revenue. The company expects to see a multi-million dollar return on its investment this year. This year's RealWare Awards had the largest response in terms of entries since the program started seven years ago. Judges focused on the use of software tools and algorithms to enable business users and analysts to make smarter decisions, learn about new business, supply chain, or market conditions as quickly as possible, and develop products and services based on a deeper knowledge of customers. Allen Razdow, President of Torrent Systems, stated "Torrent is proud to be recognized as to be providing business value to customers like Fingerhut." "Orchestrate was a critical piece of the MSO. Without Orchestrate, we could not have achieved our goal of optimizing our advertising efforts," said Fingerhut Group Manager for Corporate Research and Analysis Randy Erdahl. "As for future uses, we foresee other ways that we could reap benefits from this investment." Winners will be announced August 3, 1999 at the Decision Processing '99 Conference produced by DCI (Display Control Interface) An Intel/Microsoft programming interface for full-motion video and games in Windows. It allowed applications to take advantage of video accelerator features built into the display adapter. and Database Associates, in San Jose San Jose, city, United States San Jose (sănəzā`, săn hōzā`), city (1990 pop. 782,248), seat of Santa Clara co., W central Calif.; founded 1777, inc. 1850. , CA, as well as in "Intelligent Enterprise," and online at www.realwareawards.com. About Torrent Systems, Inc. Torrent Systems' flagship product, Orchestrate, is an integration and performance framework that enables enterprises to deploy business intelligence systems that can process massive amounts of data at the speed required in the Internet era. Unlike conventional systems implementation and integration techniques, Orchestrate combines powerful parallel processing technology and open APIs to help enterprises realize the highest possible processing performance, achieve point-and-click integration of best-of-breed applications, and shorten system deployment time. Today, Orchestrate users are deploying systems that integrate and scale the performance of the leading packages in use in data warehouses, including SAS (1) (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, www.sas.com) A software company that specializes in data warehousing and decision support software based on the SAS System. Founded in 1976, SAS is one of the world's largest privately held software companies. See SAS System. , Harte-Hank's Relationship Builder direct marketing software, i.d.Centric's data quality applications, and more. Customers include Fingerhut Companies, Inc., Sears, Roebuck and Co., United Airlines Inc., and Wachovia Corp. For more information, visit Torrent's Web site at www.torrent.com. About Fingerhut Companies, Inc. Fingerhut Companies, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary Wholly Owned Subsidiary A subsidiary whose parent company owns 100% of its common stock. Notes: In other words, the parent company owns the company outright and there are no minority owners. of Federated Connected and treated as one. See federated database and federated directories. Department Stores, Inc. (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :FD), is a leading database marketing company selling a broad range of products and services through the Internet, catalogs and direct marketing. The company owns Popular Club, a membership-based cataloger of general merchandise, Arizona Mail Order and Bedford Fair, catalog apparel companies, and Figi's, a food and gift catalog company. In addition, Fingerhut owns 40 percent of PC Flowers & Gifts, Inc. and equity position in The Zone Network, FreeShop.com, Roxy.com, Hand Technologies, and 1-800BIRTHDAY.com, leading Internet retailers. Based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, the company and its subsidiaries employ approximately 10,000 people. Fingerhut can be found on the Internet at www.fingerhut.com, www.andysgarage.com, www.andysauction.com, www.thehut.com, www.pcflowers.com, www.mountainzone.com, www.skiresorts.com, www.freeshop.com, www.roxy.com, www.pcscentral.com, www.satellite.com, www.handtech.com and www.1-800BIRTHDAY.com. About the RealWare Awards Introduced in 1993, the RealWare Awards have become a prestigious distinction for vendors and their customers alike. Past RealWare Awards winners include: BEA/WebLogic, Btrieve Technologies, Computer Associates International, Hewlett-Packard Network & Systems Management Division, Hyperion Solutions, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) , Information Advantage, Magic Software, MicroStrategy, NCR (NCR Corporation, Dayton, OH, www.ncr.com) A technology company specializing in financial terminal transactions, retail systems and data warehousing. Until the late 1990s, NCR was heavily invested in the hardware side of the industry, known worldwide as a major manufacturer of computers , ParcPlace Systems, Prism Solutions, Servio Corporation, Software AG, Sybase, Texas Instruments, Uniface An application development system for e-commerce and client/server environments from Compuware. It is a repository-driven system that integrates with a variety of CASE tools, report writers and version control systems. , Verity. About "Intelligent Enterprise" Magazine "Intelligent Enterprise" is a major business intelligence publication specializing in developing business-critical solutions such as decision support, data warehousing, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) An integrated information system that serves all departments within an enterprise. Evolving out of the manufacturing industry, ERP implies the use of packaged software rather than proprietary software written by or for one customer. (enterprise resource planning See ERP. (application, business) Enterprise Resource Planning - (ERP) Any software system designed to support and automate the business processes of medium and large businesses. ), and e-commerce. These solutions form the backbone of corporate information supply chains that deliver information to business decision-makers. "Intelligent Enterprise" serves an audience of more than 100,000 IT and business leaders who create and manage the information supply chain. Qualified subscriptions are available at http://www.iemagazine.com/subs.shtml. "Intelligent Enterprise" is a trademark of Miller Freeman, Inc. All Miller Freeman product, service and program names are trademarks of Miller Freeman. |
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