Sagent Wires John Wieland Homes for Business Intelligence

Combined ETL/Data Quality Solution Allows Business Analysts at Top Homebuilder to Access Integrated, Accurate Customer Information from ERP and Historical Databases

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 27, 2003 -- Sagent (Nasdaq:SGNT), a leading provider of enterprise business intelligence solutions, today announced that John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods, an award-winning land and home developer based in the southeastern United States, is using data warehousing software from Sagent to empower over 100 field offices to access integrated, accurate customer information for use in business analysis.

Wieland needed a way to integrate data from its new ERP system with historical data from existing systems to enable business analysts to spot buying patterns, clearly identify warranty trends and serve their customers more efficiently. Wieland selected Sagent to give its users these capabilities. The Sagent solution allows Wieland's business analysts to put integrated data into the hands of front-line employees in over 100 field offices. Sagent's component-based approach allows non-technical users to build reports that integrate data from multiple sources and calculate new analytics using a simplified view based on business metadata. Moreover, this data is thoroughly "cleansed" before users can access it to ensure that they are working with accurate, up-to-date information.

"We currently offer the industry's most comprehensive warranty, including twenty years of structural coverage. With advances in technology, we have used three different database systems to track warranty expenditures in the past decade and are planning the migration to yet another to try to get us through the next decade," said David Cochran, Director of Information Technology at John Wieland Homes. "Before we began using Sagent, customer service managers had no way of seeing a unified view of historical warranty information, which meant that we were missing opportunities to target the root causes of defects and to further enhance our ability to meet our customers' expectations. The Sagent solution will allow us to manage the history of a customer throughout the twenty-year warranty no matter what CRM package we use. Sagent combines ease-of-use with real technological advantages, such as automated updating and integrated data quality capabilities. Our team in the field can trust that the information it is using is accurate, current, and complete."

Data integration and data quality have been elevated to "must-have" status for any company working towards real-time analytic capabilities. A recent Aberdeen report by Guy Creese and Alex Veytsel asserts: "without clean, fast, and integrated data streams, real-time analytics cannot fully deliver on its promises or reach its potential. Data quality practices must not be viewed as a sideline, but as integral to the business."

"Sagent has gained significant traction with customers such as Wieland, where business users need an easy way to access and analyze integrated data," said John Maxwell, Sagent EVP & GM, Americas and Asia Pacific. "Sagent's data flow architecture puts real-time data integration and analysis capabilities directly into the hands of the business users, people who work with the information on a day-to-day basis. This is a dramatically different value proposition than what is currently available in the market, and it is resonating with Sagent's customers and partners, as well as industry analysts."

Wieland evaluated multiple data warehousing vendors with the assistance of Atlanta-based Systems Evolution, Inc. "Our focus is on helping IT projects gain traction within the business, and the selection of the correct tools is an essential step in the process," said Greg Boyd, Business Development Executive at Systems Evolution, Inc. "Sagent is a great fit for Wieland Homes. They will have more accurate information with respect to buying patterns of customers, and that translates into increased productivity and sales for Wieland."

About John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods

Since 1970, John Wieland has been designing award-winning homes in dynamic neighborhoods across the Southeast, and to date over 20,000 families have purchased a Wieland home. A strong commitment to customer satisfaction and total quality has earned the company more than 440 awards for excellence including the National Builder of the Year and National Housing Quality Award. With annual revenues of over $500 million, the company has 15 regional offices and over 100 total locations. For more information, please see www.jwhomes.com.

About Systems Evolution Inc.

For 10 years, SEI has provided the thought leadership and implementation services to deliver reliable, scalable, and timely business intelligence and e-business solutions which provide the infrastructure for creating powerful relationships with customers, employees, partners, and suppliers. SEI has developed a consistent approach of delivering results in an incremental fashion in order to meet the needs today's cost-conscious IT organizations, including an initial "Traction Assessment" that brings together both IT and business users to specify and agree upon criteria for success. As a result, SEI consistently delivers value to clients in a shorter timeline than that of traditional consulting engagements, which has helped SEI build a strong client base that includes numerous Fortune 500 companies. For more information about Systems Evolution Inc., please visit www.sysev.com.

About Sagent

Sagent's patented technology fundamentally changes the way that data warehouses are built and accessed. Sagent's unique data flow server enables business users to easily extend the structure of a data warehouse with new analytics that support immediate business needs. This technology is at the core of Sagent's ETL, EII and business intelligence solutions, as well as multiple partner solutions that address the needs of specific vertical and functional application areas. Sagent has more than 1,500 customers worldwide, including: AT&T, Boeing Employees Credit Union, BP Amoco, Carrefour, Citibank, Diageo, Heineken, Kawasaki, Kemper National Insurance, La Poste, NTT-DoCoMo, Siemens, and Singapore Telecom. Key partners include Advent Software, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, HAHT Commerce, Hyperion, Microsoft, Satyam, Sun Microsystems, and Unisys. The company also maintains a business partnership with CDC Software Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary and software unit of chinadotcom corporation, which includes a strategic investment in Sagent. Sagent is headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more information about Sagent, please visit www.sagent.com.

Note to Editors: Sagent and Sagent Solution are trademarks of Sagent Technology Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

      --30--LR/sf*

      CONTACT: Sagent
               Dave Henry, 720/564-3003
               dhenry@sagent.com
               lmaster@sagent.com
                   or
               Sparkpr
               Ian Yellin, 415/962-8200 ext. 234
               ian@spark.com