Crystal Decisions Unveils New Unix Version of Crystal Enterprise

ORLANDO, FLA -- May 1, 2002 -- At the Crystal Decisions User Group of North America conference, Crystal Decisions today introduced Crystal Enterprise 8.5, a new multi-platform version of its proven Web-based reporting, analysis and information delivery solution. Setting the standard for mission-critical information delivery systems, Crystal Enterprise enables organizations to make better use of corporate data, improve decision-making and drive business profitability. Crystal Enterprise runs on both UNIX and Windows NT/2000 platforms.

With Crystal Enterprise, corporations can achieve cost efficiencies by creating an enterprise information infrastructure that can access data from virtually any data source or application, analyze it, create a report and deliver it through a company's intranet or extranet.

"We chose to switch over to Crystal Decisions almost two years ago because of the scalability of their enterprise reporting solution and the ability to deploy fast," said Peter Belina, Vice President, Lehman Brothers Global Information Technology Group. "We now have more than 2000 internal users, through 16 different projects, that access, analyze and share the critical business information they need to do their jobs. We are in the process of deploying all 16 Crystal Decisions projects against a UNIX platform, and have been extremely happy with the results. Crystal Enterprise works seamlessly with our UNIX platform and we're excited about the increased speed and reliability this will give us."

Encompassing more than seven years of experience designing and deploying mission-critical multi-server environments, Crystal Enterprise 8.5 builds upon the success of Crystal Enterprise 8, which is used by more than 20,000 customers. It provides fully automated fail-over, load balancing and disaster recovery, and integrates seamlessly with most existing IT assets, including security systems, development platforms and extranet/portal applications. Crystal Enterprise includes Crystal Reports for high-performance reporting, and Crystal Analysis Professional for sophisticated guided analysis of multi-dimensional data.

New and enhanced features include:

• Reliable cross platform support for both UNIX (Sun Solaris and IBM AIX) and Windows 2000/NT platforms
• Exceptional scalability and reliability - scale up on multi-processor machines or scale out over multiple physical machines; proven clustering technology ensures optimal uptime
• Improved scheduling, caching and up-to-the-minute optimized delivery modes to reduce human and hardware resources required to ensure proper management of the system
• Integration of reporting and analysis into extranet, portal or wireless applications
• Full support for leading application servers from BEA Systems, IBM and Microsoft, including support for J2EE, COM and .NET standards

Crystal Enterprise was released to a select group of 40 customers in March 2002, under Crystal Decisions' Managed Distribution Program, capping a rigorous internal testing effort and a six-month beta program involving more than 400 companies worldwide.

"Thousands of customers around the world depend on Crystal Enterprise to provide them with a platform for standardizing information access across the enterprise," said Andrew Handford, Vice President of Product, Crystal Decisions. "Crystal Enterprise delivers proven clustering technology, linear scalability and rock-solid security for these mission-critical applications, and we believe that this latest release can set a new standard in the market."

With more than 11 million licenses of Crystal Decisions' products in the market, and more than 285 OEM partners including SAP, Microsoft, Baan, PeopleSoft, Hyperion, Lawson and IBM, most companies are already using Crystal Decisions products throughout their organizations. By leveraging their existing reports, and delivering them with Crystal Enterprise, Crystal Decisions provides one of the fastest ways to standardize information access across the organization.

Pricing and Availability

Crystal Enterprise is sold directly through the Crystal Decisions sales force and the company is currently accepting orders for the new version. The product has flexible pricing and licensing alternatives including named user, concurrent user and processor-based options. The Java developer components are in final beta testing now and will be delivered to customers within the next 30-60 days. Support for AIX platform will be available in 60-90 days. For additional information, phone 1-800-877-2340 (North America) or 1-604-681-3435 (International), or visit the Crystal Decisions Web site at www.crystaldecisions.com.

About Crystal Decisions

Crystal Decisions is one of the world's leading information management software companies with more than 11 million licenses shipped. Since 1984, Crystal Decisions has powered winning organizations with one of the fastest ways for employees, partners and customers to access the information they need to make the best decisions and ultimately, reduce costs and increase productivity. The Crystal brand is among the most trusted names in enterprise reporting and more than 285 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) have standardized on Crystal Decisions' solutions. Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., Crystal Decisions can be found in more than 20 countries and on the Web at www.crystaldecisions.com.

Crystal Decisions, Crystal Reports, Crystal Enterprise, Crystal Analysis and Holos are either a registered trademark or trademark of Crystal Decisions Inc., in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.