IBM and Ascential Software Form Global Strategic Alliance to Provide Leading Business Intelligence and Information Asset Management Solutions-- IBM to Market and Sell New e-Business Solutions Integrating DataStage and Media360 Products--Somers, NY and Westboro, MA., — April 24, 2001 — IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Ascential™ Software, an independent operating company of Informix® Corporation (Nasdaq:IFMX), today announced a global strategic alliance to develop and market business intelligence and digital asset management offerings for Information Asset Management, bringing the advanced features of Ascential Software's products to IBM's strategic hardware and software platforms. This new relationship provides IBM with industry leading products that complement its existing e-business solutions, while increasing the sales distribution capacity of Ascential Software. Under terms of the agreement, Ascential Software will integrate its DataStage® product line with IBM's DB2* Warehouse Manager, giving customers the ability to integrate data from virtually any environment into a DB2*-based data warehouse, thereby fully leveraging their information assets. In addition, Ascential Software's media asset management offering, Media360™, will be part of an IBM preferred solution and will support IBM's AIX* operating system and DB2* Universal Database. This will enable customers to manage an array of unstructured assets including video, audio, images, documents and web pages, increasing operational efficiencies. IBM will market and resell these new solutions through its worldwide sales channel and Global Services organization. This alliance will empower Global 2000 companies to better use business intelligence and media content management solutions to manage all their information assets across the organization. It will also allow companies to access relevant information assets inside and outside the corporation and re-purpose those assets for competitive economic advantage. Through collaborative development, Ascential Software's data integration products, DataStage® and DataStage 390, will be optimized for the IBM platform. DataStage for DB2* Warehouse Manager will perform the vital functions necessary to extract, transform and integrate data from a wide variety of sources and applications. Customers will benefit from a data integration solution optimized for their DB2 environment, providing a scalable platform for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), business intelligence and supply chain management applications. "Managing information assets is fundamental to the growth and success of every company today," said Janet Perna, general manager, IBM's Data Management Solutions. "Our DB2 and AIX platforms, combined with Ascential Software's data integration and media asset management offerings, will allow us to deliver new solutions to integrate and manage the growing volume and variety of data in today's enterprise." "The alliance with IBM is an exciting prospect for Ascential and our customers. It validates our commitment to establishing strategic alliances with the industry's leading solution providers, and is a key element of delivering on our Information Asset Management strategy," said Pete Fiore, president, Ascential Software. "By combining two great product portfolios, we believe we're very well positioned to deliver enhanced products and solutions to our customers and prospects worldwide." Ascential Software joins the ranks of leading independent software vendors such as Siebel Systems, PeopleSoft and Retek as a member of the PartnerWorld for Developers program (www.developer.ibm.com). These alliances provide solutions to industries such as financial services, retail, and manufacturing, and solution segments including enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, customer relationship management and business intelligence. About Ascential Software, Inc. About IBM Public Relations Contacts:
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