Major Italian Utility Deploys Ascential DataStage as Foundation of New Data Warehouse

ENI Gas & Power Integrates Data to Support Decision Making throughout Division

WESTBORO, Mass., Jan. 22, 2003 -- Ascential Software Corporation (Nasdaq: ASCL), the enterprise integration leader, today announced that one of the largest suppliers of natural gas in Italy, ENI Gas & Power Division, has deployed Ascential(TM) DataStage(R) XE as the data integration foundation of its new data warehouse, which supports decision making applications throughout the division.

ENI chose DataStage XE for its market intelligence data warehouse project to work within the IT architecture designed by Accenture, a systems integrator and strategic partner of Ascential. The ENI division made the decision as ENI transforms itself from a holding company to an integrated oil company working on an international scale. This transformation dictated the need within the Gas & Power Division's marketing department for a decision-support software platform to analyze marketing and sales data in an integrated manner in support of strategic planning and decision-making.

"We chose Ascential Software's solution for two reasons: the good reputation that DataStage XE has already earned within our Group and the particularly positive opinion expressed by the analysts we consulted before making decisions about the technological infrastructure to be used to create our data warehousing system," said Giovanni Burri, Information Systems Manager for ENI's Gas&Power division.

"As system integrator for this Market Intelligence Data Warehouse project, we believe that DataStage and the other products included in the Ascential(TM) Enterprise Integration Suite are valuable tools for any company that wishes to centralize the management of information, independent of the sources that generated that data. DataStage XE guarantees the high reliability of the information and is, thus, a strategic solution for guaranteeing the effectiveness of the decision-support and business intelligence systems," said Anna Maria Carpani, Accenture Project Manager.

The Gas & Power Division's data warehouse draws data from disparate sources, including an Oracle database, a DB2 database on an IBM mainframe, and a Siebel application in a Microsoft Windows NT environment. The first release of the division's system deployed last year manages 30 GB (billion bytes) of data and is being used by about 80 division managers spread throughout Italy.

ENI's Gas & Power Division joins a rapidly growing spectrum of major enterprises around the world that have chosen Ascential Enterprise Integration solutions, including the Bank of Thailand, Deutsche Telecom, Lufthansa, China Mobile, Canon, Galleries Lafeyette, and Bell Canada.

Ascential DataStage is a foundation product within the Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite, which combines the company's three data integration products for data profiling (MetaRecon(R)), data quality (INTEGRITY(TM)), and data transformation (DataStage) on a shared platform of software services that achieves scalability through parallel processing, management of metadata, and virtually any-to-any connectivity of source and target data.

The Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite's scalability is critical to high-volume and real-time data integration, allowing customers to tap an unlimited number of processors through parallel processing-based data integration.

About Ascential

Ascential Software Corporation is the leading provider of enterprise integration solutions to the Global 2000. Customers use the Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite and products to turn vast amounts of disparate, unrefined data into reusable information that drives business success. Ascential's unique comprehensive data integration suite enables customers to easily collect, validate, organize, administer and deliver information to realize more value from their enterprise data, reduce costs and increase profitability. Headquartered in Westboro, Mass., Ascential has offices worldwide and supports more than 2,200 customers in such industries as financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, life sciences, manufacturing, consumer goods and retail. More information on Ascential can be found on the Web at http://www.ascentialsoftware.com.

ENI, Oracle, IBM, Siebel, Microsoft, Accenture, Bank of Thailand, Deutsche Telecom, Lufthansa, China Mobile, Canon, Galleries Lafeyette, and Bell Canada mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This release contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events, and these statements are subject to important factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this release address a variety of subjects including, for example, the functionality, characteristics and performance capabilities of Ascential's products and technology, the ability of Ascential to extend its leadership in the Enterprise Integration market, the ability of Ascential's products to be utilized as a data integration foundation, the ability of Ascential products and services to deliver value in the process of centralizing management of information and the ability of Ascential's products to scale and permit customers to integrate data via parallel processing techniques. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements: risks relating to Ascential's sale to IBM of its database business, the ability of Ascential to expand its market share, growth rates for the enterprise data integration software market, general business conditions in the software industry, the technology sector, and in the domestic and international economies, rapid technological change in the markets served by Ascential, dependence on international operations, and difficulties that Ascential may experience integrating technologies, operations and personnel of completed or future acquisitions. For a detailed discussion of these and other cautionary statements, please refer to the filings made by Ascential with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, the most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Ascential disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statements made herein to reflect any change in Ascential's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which such statements are based.

Ascential, DataStage, MetaRecon and INTEGRITY are trademarks of Ascential Software Corporation or its affiliates and may be registered in the United States or other jurisdictions. Other marks are the property of the owners of those marks.

SOURCE Ascential Software Corporation

Web Site: http://www.ascentialsoftware.com