Major Electricity and Gas Company Standardizes on Brio Software to Manage Energy Delivery

"We chose to work with Brio because they provided the most effective tools and applications available for creating performance dashboards to help guide business decisions and track performance across the organization," stated Gene Smith, program manager, Xcel Energy. "Brio has already proved to be not only a cost-effective resource, but also an essential solution that will help us gain a competitive advantage in today's business environment."

With the utilities industry becoming increasingly competitive, Xcel Energy recognized the need to implement a business intelligence solution to help managers identify important issues affecting various divisions of the organization. As the preferred business intelligence provider within Xcel Energy, Brio Software provides business units with new insight into production, operations, inventory, workload levels, customer accounts and contracts, and engineering designs.

"Xcel Energy was looking for a simple way to obtain information from its existing knowledge warehouse, and that is exactly what Brio provided," stated Don Beck, executive vice president, worldwide sales, Brio Software. "With the data they are able to extract, Xcel employees are equipped with the resources to continually monitor and report on all aspects of their business, including customer issues, supplier requests, and employee performance. Using Brio's products, Xcel Energy has found a powerful way to improve its business performance."

By deploying Brio's tools and applications, Xcel Energy is able to provide business managers with access to mission-critical operational data from its knowledge warehouse, delivering real-time information to employees via a web-enabled interface. Additionally, Brio provides Xcel Energy users with all information located in the company's data warehouse to help make critical business decisions, identify significant trends in the marketplace and reduce costs across all levels of the organization. Xcel Energy Delivery chose to implement Brio's solutions after a review of all top business intelligence competitors.

About Xcel Energy
Xcel Energy (NYSE: XEL) is a major U.S. electricity and natural gas company with operations in 12 Western and Midwestern states. Formed by the merger of Denver-based New Century Energies and Minneapolis-based Northern States Power Co., Xcel Energy provides a comprehensive portfolio of energy-related products and services to 3.2 million electricity customers and 1.7 million natural gas customers through its regulated operating companies. In terms of customers, it is the fourth-largest combination natural gas and electricity company in the nation. Company headquarters are located in Minneapolis. More information is available at www.xcelenergy.com.

About Brio Software
Brio Software is the leading provider of next-generation business intelligence tools and applications that help Global 3000 companies achieve breakthrough business performance. Widely recognized as one of the easiest-to-use and deploy solutions in the industry, the Brio Performance Suite™ expands business intelligence beyond advanced query and analysis technologies to include powerful information delivery through enterprise-class reporting and personalized performance dashboards. Used by nearly 70 percent of the Fortune 100, Brio products empower individuals, workgroups and executives in an organization to turn enterprise information into actionable insight, so superior decisions and business performance result. Founded in 1989, and headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, Brio products and services can be found around the globe at www.brio.com.

Brio Intelligence, Brio Portal, Brio Reports, Brio Performance Suite and Brio Performance Applications are trademarks of Brio Software.

The statements in this press release regarding the results and improvements obtained based on the implementation of Brio Software applications within Xcel Energy are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, changes in business strategy, quality and integrity of data inside the Brio applications, limited resources for product installation and integration of the Brio Software applications at Xcel Energy, specific software versions at Xcel Energy sites, as well as Brio's future product direction and general economic conditions. For a more complete discussion of risk factors that could affect Brio's current and future operating results, see the discussions in Brio's reports filed with the SEC from time to time, including but not limited to Brio's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 2001 filed with the SEC on June 29, 2001 and Brio's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2001 filed with the SEC on August 14, 2001 and for the quarter ended September 30, 2001 filed with the SEC on November 14, 2001.