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Leading OLAP, Query Tool Vendors Join Informatica to Provide End Users With
Integrated Metadata

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Date: Tuesday, February 25, 1997
Source: PR Newswire
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ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 24 /PRNewswire/ via Individual Inc. -- Users of popular
OLAP and query tools will soon be able to seamlessly access all the
metadata underlying their data warehouse or data mart as the result of a
new initiative called the Metadata Exchange (MX) Architecture, announced
here today by Informatica Corp. and supported by Andyne, Brio, Business
Objects, Cognos, Information Advantage, Infospace, IQ Software and
MicroStrategy.

These eight leading vendors of desktop decision support tools said today
that they will support the MX Architecture by tightly integrating the
business metadata created by their products with the technical, back-end
metadata residing in the Informatica PowerMart Repository. The PowerMart
Repository is the open metadata integration hub of Informatica's PowerMart,
an integrated suite of "second-generation" tools used for building and
managing data warehouses.

Andyne

"Through the MX architecture, Andyne GQL and PowerMart will address today's
data mart customers' need for simplified metadata management," said Cameron
Thompson, president and CEO Andyne Computing Limited. "By piping
information from the PowerMart Repository to Andyne GQL data models,
customers will realize shortened 'time to query' along with simplified DSS
system creation and maintenance. In short, the partnership lets decision
makers make the most of Andyne's decision support suite quickly and
efficiently."

Brio Technology

"Brio Technology recognizes the inherent challenge in integrating metadata
between data warehouses or data marts and clients," said Katherine Glassey,
CTO and executive vice president, products, Brio Technology. "We designed
BrioQuery Enterprise to directly read existing metadata, thus eliminating
metadata redundancy. The use of BrioQuery Enterprise's Open Metadata
Interpreter within the MX Architecture allows users instant access to
business metadata in the PowerMart repository and relieves the burden on IT
departments to redefine and synchronize static metadata layers."

Business Objects

"We see this integration as an important development in an already strong
partnership between two industry leaders," said Bernard Liautaud, president
and CEO, Business Objects. "Business Objects and Informatica have already
been working together in delivering data mart solutions, including our
joint work with Microsoft and Digital. Our integration of BusinessObjects
with Informatica's MX Architecture will further enable customers to rapidly
deploy their data mart solutions."

Cognos

"Metadata integration is a key issue for our enterprise customers," said
Alan Rottenberg, senior vice president, Business Intelligence Tools,
Cognos. "Our partnership with Informatica is important to the rapid
expansion of Cognos business intelligence tools within this market segment.
The combination of integrated decision support metadata and our
award-winning reporting and query tool, Impromptu, is unbeatable."

Information Advantage

"Information Advantage and Informatica have both taken a leadership role in
advancing the management of metadata," said Larry Ford, president and CEO
Information Advantage. "The MX Architecture is an important step toward
further addressing one of the most significant data warehouse issues."

Infospace, Inc.

"At the intersection of the data mart and intranet trends, good metadata
can make all the difference in successfully increasing access to
information," said Stan Wang, president and CEO, Infospace, Inc. "Metadata
acts as a buffer between the business user and the data mart schema,
allowing non-technical users to understand and navigate their data more
intuitively. Combine this with a familiar, point-and-click browser
interface, and you have a powerful intranet solution. Working closely with
Informatica, Infospace is integrating the MX Architecture with its
Java-based decision support tools to enable customers to build and deploy a
complete, low cost warehousing solution for hundreds of users."

IQ Software

"IQ Software is focused on providing end users with the tools they need to
turn the data in their data marts, databases and data warehouses into
meaningful information," said Michael Gaiss, vice president of marketing,
IQ Software. Integrating our decision support tools with Informatica's new
MX architecture ensures that our customers will be able to maximize their
investment in metadata management faster and more easily."

MicroStrategy

"With more production ROLAP installations than any other vendor,
MicroStrategy is keenly aware of the need for greater metadata
manageability," Sanju Bansal, COO, MicroStrategy. Informatica's MX
Architecture, in connection with MicroStrategy's DSS Architect (metadata
development tool) and DSS Administrator (metadata management tool), is an
important step in the efforts to provide scalable, low maintenance data
warehousing solutions for the enterprise."

About Informatica

Informatica Corporation, located in Menlo Park, Calif., is the leading
provider of software for designing and managing line-of-business and
enterprise data marts. The company was founded in 1993 with a vision to
help companies quickly benefit from industrial-strength data warehousing by
providing software that accelerates warehouse implementation, improves
price/performance and expands flexibility. Informatica's PowerMart suite
was recently recognized by InformationWeek as one of the "Important
Products of the Year" for 1996, and by Database Programming & Design as a
database industry influencer to watch in 1997.

NOTE: Informatica, PowerMart and The Enterprise Data Mart Company are
trademarks of Informatica Corporation. All other trade names are trademarks
of their respective manufacturers. SOURCE Informatica Corp.

/CONTACT: Karen Dabaghian of Informatica Corp., 415-473-6234, or
[email protected]; or Scott Behles of Applied Communications,
415-375-8881, or [email protected], for Informatica Corp./ CO:
Informatica Corp. ST: California IN: CPR MLM SU: PDT  BD-CL -- SFM049 --
2537 02/24/97 08:06 EST http://www.prnewswire.com
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Date: Wednesday, March 19, 1997

Source:
PR Newswire


-- Digital Chooses New Alpha NT Version of Informatica PowerMart to Rapidly 
Implement Series of Data Marts  Informatica's PowerMart, Industry-Leading 
Toolset for Building, Managing 

MENLO PARK, Calif., March 18 /PRNewswire/ via Individual Inc. -- Informatica
Corp., the Enterprise Data Mart Company, today announced the availability of
its PowerMart suite for Digital Equipment Corporation's AlphaServer NT system,
as well as its first customer for this newest version of the industry's leading
toolset for building and managing enterprise-scalable data marts.  To no one's
surprise, that customer is Digital, who has chosen PowerMart to build a series
of data marts -- single-function data warehouses -- that will enable Digital
managers to more efficiently utilize a wide range of critical corporate
resources

The availability of PowerMart on DIGITAL AlphaServer NT gives Informatica
customers access to one of the industry's highest performing, scalable server
platforms and, as such, is a perfect complement to the company's product
strategy of providing data mart solutions that will support decision-support
requirements on both a departmental- and enterprise-wide level.  The DIGITAL
AlphaServer family of systems is the industry's only complete line of high-
performance 64-bit RISC servers, ranging from the AlphaServer 8000 enterprise
servers at the high end, to the departmental and network AlphaServer 4000 and
2000 class systems, to the workgroup and LAN AlphaServer 400 platform.

Today's announcement comes on the heels of a reseller agreement signed between
Informatica and Digital in September, to deliver one of the industry's first
complete solutions for building and managing enterprise-scalable data marts for
under $100,000.  The agreement created the DIGITAL Data Mart Service, which
combines Informatica's PowerMart suite with Business Objects 4.0, Microsoft SQL
Server and up to six weeks of Digital's systems integration services.  "We are
pleased to expand our relationship with Digital from a solely business
partnership to a customer partnership," said Gaurav Dhillon, CEO of Informatica
Corp.  "The combination of PowerMart and AlphaServer NT gives customers the
most scalable and cost-effective solutions available for building, deploying
and managing enterprise-scalable data marts.  What better way to showcase the
power of this technology than to have Digital implement PowerMart-driven data
marts internally."

PowerMart, which currently runs on both Microsoft NT and UNIX servers, uses
graphical tools linked to a common metadata repository to populate
enterprise-scalable data marts.  Running on both UNIX and Microsoft NT servers,
PowerMart uses Windows 95 and Windows NT clients and works seamlessly with all
major databases, including DB2, IMS, VSAM, flat file systems, Oracle7,
Microsoft SQL Server, Informix and Sybase.  PowerMart suite pricing starts at
$45,000 for a single data source and target.

Digital Data Mart Project

Digital Equipment Corporation is a world leader in open client/server solutions
from personal computing to integrated worldwide information systems. Digital's
scalable Alpha and Intel platforms, storage, networking, software and services,
together with industry-focused solutions from business partners, help
organizations compete and win in today's global marketplace.  More information
on Digital AlphaServer systems can be found at
http://www.digital.com/infor/alphaserver, or call Digital at 1-800-DIGITAL.
Individuals interested in learning more about the PowerMart suite and data
marts can order a free CD-ROM by visiting Informatica's web site at
http://www.informatica.com, or by calling (800) 653.3871.  The CD-ROM includes
in-depth analyses of the growing market for data marts and a demonstration of
the PowerMart suite.

Informatica Corporation, located in Menlo Park, Calif., is the leading provider
of software for designing and managing line-of-business and enterprise data
marts.  The company was founded in 1993 with a vision to help companies quickly
benefit from industrial-strength data warehousing by providing software that
accelerates warehouse implementation, improves price/performance and expands
flexibility.  Informatica's PowerMart suite was recently recognized by
InformationWeek as one of the "Important Products of the Year" for 1996, and by
Database Programming & Design as a database industry influencer to watch in
1997.

Informatica, PowerMart and The Enterprise Data Mart Company are trademarks of
Informatica Corporation.  All other trade names are trademarks of their
respective manufacturers.

SOURCE  Informatica Corp.

/CONTACT: Karen Dabaghian of Informatica Corporation, 415-473-6234, email:
[email protected]; or Scott Behles of Applied Communications, 415-375-8881
[email protected]/

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Informatica Completes Microsoft BackOffice Certification for Windows NT

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Date: Tuesday, April 8, 1997
Source: PR Newswire
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MENLO PARK, Calif., April 7 /PRNewswire/ via Individual Inc. -- Informatica
Corp., the Enterprise Data Mart Company, today announced that its PowerMart
suite is certified to integrate with Microsoft's BackOffice family of
server software products on the Windows NT(R) network operating system.
PowerMart provides the data warehousing industry's most proven, integrated
and easy-to-use tool to help companies build enterprise-scalable data marts
and data warehouses on Windows NT as well as UNIX.

"PowerMart makes it easy for companies to build and manage data marts on
Windows NT," said Jim Ewel, Microsoft Group Product Manager for SQL Server.
"PowerMart's ease-of-use, rapid implementation times, reduced maintenance
cycles, low cost and quick ROI make it a natural fit with SQL Server and
Windows NT customers' existing computing environments."

Data mart deployment on Windows NT is rapidly becoming a strategic choice
for companies seeking all the benefits of decision-support in a short
timeframe. The META Group estimates that 25 percent of Windows NT sales are
related to data mart projects. The surging growth of data marts on NT has
been championed largely by Informatica, the first vendor to offer a
next-generation, integrated NT-based solution for building data marts.

Informatica customer San Diego Gas & Electric Co. is running a
PowerMart-built data mart on Windows NT to better manage company resources,
maximize profitability and improve customer service for its more than one
million customers. "PowerMart gave us exactly what we needed a Windows
NT-based tool that enabled us to leverage all our existing resources with a
focused data mart," said Jonathan Wiltshire, data administrator at San
Diego Gas & Electric Co. "We've consolidated targeted data and made it more
readily available to our end users, all the while keeping our system
tightly integrated and user-friendly with Windows NT and Microsoft SQL
Server."

"We have been very serious about our leadership position on Microsoft NT
and SQL Server from the start," said Gaurav Dhillon, chief executive
officer, Informatica. "Informatica is the leading vendor of 2nd generation
data warehousing tools for designing and deploying data warehouses, and
Microsoft's platform is a significant part of our business. Along with our
partners such as Digital Equipment, Informatica's technology has created a
new reality in the data warehousing market rapid warehouse deployment. In
fact, more than 40% of our business today is on the NT operating system and
we see that part of our business continuing to explode in the future."

Informatica was chosen as a founding partner in Microsoft's Active-Data
Warehouse Framework in September 1996, bringing complementary data
extraction, transformation and management capabilities to SQL Server. The
Active-Data Warehouse Framework is designed to reduce the time, costs and
complexity of building and managing powerful, scalable data warehouses and
data marts based on Windows NT and the Microsoft SQL Server RDBMS. The
framework consists of a metadata repository; a set of standard data
transformation services; a set of data movement interfaces, including the
ability to seamlessly plug in to Microsoft's replication architecture; and
a set of administration services.

Microsoft BackOffice is an integrated family of Internet and intranet
server software products built on the Windows NT network operating system.
Microsoft BackOffice is designed to meet the varying needs of businesses of
all sizes, as well as the specific needs of commercial service providers,
including Internet Service providers (ISPs), public network carriers, cable
companies, telephone companies, and other content providers.

Informatica's flagship product, PowerMart, has set the industry benchmark
for "second generation" warehousing tools, characterized by PowerMart's
highly graphical interface, integrated metadata, ease-of-use and highly
scalable, engine-based approach to data transformation and extraction.

To learn more about the PowerMart suite and data marts, users can order a
free CD-ROM by visiting Informatica's web site at
http://www.informatica.com or by calling 800-653-3871. The CD-ROM includes
in-depth analyses of the growing market for data marts and a demonstration
of the PowerMart suite.

Informatica Corporation, located in Menlo Park, Calif., is the leading
provider of software for designing and managing line-of-business and
enterprise data marts. The company was founded in 1993 with a vision to
help companies quickly benefit from industrial-strength data warehousing by
providing software that accelerates warehouse implementation, improves
price/performance and expands flexibility. Informatica's PowerMart suite
was recently recognized by InformationWeek as one of the "Important
Products of the Year" for 1996, and by Database Programming & Design as a
database industry influencer to watch in 1997.

NOTE: Informatica, PowerMart and The Enterprise Data Mart Company are
trademarks of Informatica Corporation. Microsoft, Windows NT and BackOffice
are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp. All other trade names are
trademarks of their respective manufacturers.

SOURCE Informatica Corp.

/CONTACT: Karen Dabaghian of Informatica Corp., 415-473-6234, or
[email protected]; or Bill Cox of Applied Communications,
415-375-8881, or [email protected], for Informatica Corp./ (MSFT)
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[First! for the Web]

Informatica reinforces data-mart packages

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Date: Tuesday, May 27, 1997
Source: InfoWorld
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InfoWorld via Individual Inc. : Looking to meet the demand for high-volume
data marts, data-warehouse software developer Informatica next week will
roll out an upgrade of its flagship data-mart package and introduce an
optional data-capture utility.

PowerMart,Version 3.5, runs on Unix and Windows NT servers, sports improved
data aggregation, and updates and adds synchronization of data warehouses
with operational systems.

It also performs incremental data updates through deferred triggers in
Oracle and through database logs in Sybase and in IBM's DB2 databases,
explained Paul Albright, vice president of marketing at Informatica.

PowerMart supports Oracle, Informix, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, and
Sybase IQ databases, as well as decision-support software from Redbrick and
Arbor.

PowerCapture pulls data from Oracle, DB2, and Sybase databases and can
transfer results to a wide range of databases, according to Albright.

Through the upgrade's aggregation capabilities, summarized business rules
are applied to raw data as it is moved into a data warehouse.

"Data marts are becoming bigger and more complex and require updating more
frequently," Albright said. "[The upgrade] reduces hand-coding [of indexes
and tables]. It's a dynamic process. And the warehouse only pulls the
information necessary to complete those aggregations. It optimizes the use
of resources in the warehouse and optimizes bandwidth."

Informatica next week also will ship its PowerCapture data-capture option.

"It keeps a real-time log of which data has changed on the sources. Rather
than moving all data, we move only data that has changed since the last
update," Albright said. "PowerCapture will ultimately be more of an
architecture than a product. Customers will create business logic and
repeat it across new data marts. We're creating more of a solution across
the enterprise, helping IS to deploy decision-support systems."

"Basically, users find it hard to get the information from where it was
collected and into the warehouse," said Henry Morris, an analyst with
International Data Corp., in Framingham, Mass. "And change management is
hard stuff. [The Informatica software] is getting smarter about capturing
changes to the transactional data so you have less data to flow to through
the network to the warehouse."

A follow-up package, code-named Tornado, will be released at year's end. It
will boost PowerMart's support of complex, high-volume applications,
according to Albright.

PowerMart is priced starting at $45,000. The PowerCapture option is priced
starting at $40,000.

Informatica Corp., in Menlo Park, Calif., can be reached at (415) 462-8900
or http://www.informatica.com/.
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[First! for the Web]

Informatica Delivers Industry's First Synchronized Data Marts With Newest
Version of PowerMart Suite Data Mart Pioneer First to Deliver Enterprise
Features; Smart <>

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Date: Wednesday, May 28, 1997
Source: PR Newswire
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MENLO PARK, Calif., May 27 /PRNewswire/ via Individual Inc. -- Informatica
Corp., the company credited with igniting the data warehousing industry's
shift toward data marts, today began shipping PowerMart 3.5 and
PowerCapture, two new software products that will enable users to build and
deploy data marts capable of handling some of the industry's most complex
and highest volume decision-support applications. PowerMart 3.5,
Informatica's newest version of its industry-leading data mart software
suite, includes a significant number of "industry-first" features providing
increased scalability, performance and openness. PowerCapture is the
industry's first data mart tool to automate real-time capture of
incremental database changes, enabling users to keep warehoused data
synchronized with operational systems.

With the shipment of these new products, Informatica becomes the first data
warehousing vendor to deliver "enterprise" features to users who have
embraced the data mart approach to architecting corporate-wide decision-
support systems. These features enable customers building data marts to
efficiently handle increased data volumes and shorter refresh windows
without adversely impacting the performance of their operational systems.

"Data mart customers are now bringing higher expectations to the market,
demanding enterprise-scalable solutions that support business processes on
a worldwide basis," said Gaurav Dhillon, CEO of Informatica.

"PowerMart 3.5 and PowerCapture are Informatica's answer to these
escalating expectations, providing the scalability and throughput required
by companies processing large volumes of data in an enterprise-wide
decision support environment."

"Engine-based data mart tools have been on the market long enough now for
users to have deployed them in production environments and recognized a
measurable return on investment," said Wayne Eckerson, director of the
Business Intelligence & Data Warehouse Service at the Patricia Seybold
Group. "Scaling these successful data marts up to extend to the enterprise
is now the broader issue for customers. Informatica is addressing these
needs with PowerMart 3.5 and PowerCapture."

Raising the Technology Bar

PowerMart 3.5 and PowerCapture incorporate a number of new features and
performance enhancements that significantly raise the technology bar for
"second-generation" data warehousing tool suites. These features include:

Smart Aggregations, which enable new or updated source data to be
automatically incorporated into preexisting aggregations without requiring
tables to be completely rebuilt;

Intelligent Updates, which automatically detects changes in source data and
applies predetermined updates, deletes or inserts to the data mart or data
warehouse as part a customizable update strategy;

Synchronization, which keeps data marts or data warehouses synchronized
with operational systems as changes and additions are made to source
databases.

While throughput speeds and an open architecture were already major
strengths of the PowerMart suite, Informatica has also significantly
increased performance and openness in PowerMart 3.5. The new release
supports leading database vendors' parallel loaders-the ability to load
multiple disks in parallel instead of sequentially-increasing PowerMart's
well-regarded data extraction and transformation g in the same way as any
other source database through the PowerMart scheduler. This allows database
administrators to hit their "refresh window," and reduces network
congestion and the negative impact on the operational system.

Pricing and Availability

PowerMart 3.5 is available immediately. Pricing starts at $55,000 for a
single data source and target. PowerCapture is an option to PowerMart 3.5
and is priced separately at $40,000. Designed from its inception to be
multi- platform, PowerMart 3.5 runs on both Unix and Microsoft NT servers,
uses Windows 95 and Windows NT clients, and works seamlessly with all major
databases, including Oracle7, Microsoft SQL Server, Informix, Sybase, DB2,
IMS, VSAM and flat file databases. To learn more about the PowerMart suite
and data marts, users can order a free CD-ROM by visiting Informatica's web
site at http://www.informatica.com, or by calling 800-653-3871.

Informatica Corporation, founded in 1993 and located in Menlo Park, Calif.,
is recognized as the pioneering vendor that launched the data mart
revolution through its introduction of the PowerMart suite, software
technology that sets a new standard for accelerated data warehouse design,
implementation and management. Today, PowerMart is the leading second-
generation technology for building and managing data warehouses and data
marts. The product was recently recognized by InformationWeek as one of the
"Important Products of the Year" for 1996, and by Database Programming &
Design as a database industry influencer to watch in 1997.

Informatica, PowerMart and The Enterprise Data Mart Company are trademarks
of Informatica Corporation. All other trade names are trademarks of their
respective manufacturers.

SOURCE Informatica Corporation

/CONTACT: Karen Dabaghian of Informatica Corporation, 415-473-6234, or
[email protected]; or Scott Behles of Applied Communications,
415-375-8881, or [email protected]/
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