MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., - October 16, 2001- Alphablox Corporation today announced Alphablox 4, a new product based on the company's infrastructure software for InLine AnalyticsTM. The expanded architecture featured in Alphablox 4 extends analytics within the core IT infrastructure stack to enable customers to broadly deploy collaborative analytics to the front lines for improved visibility and cross-enterprise intelligence.

Newly featured in this release, Alphablox 4 provides a set of analytic services that are built to integrate with the leading application servers, IBM WebSphere and BEA WebLogic - enabling the development and deployment of a new class of powerful, inline analytic solutions for real-time business management. Alphablox 4 also features a J2EE server-side programmable model, which offers an extensible application framework for deploying analytics "in line" with critical business applications. In addition, announced today in conjunction with Alphablox 4 is PlanningBlox; a Web-based, pre-fabricated, analytic component that enables faster deployment of collaborative budgeting, planning, and forecasting applications.

By taking business intelligence out of its traditional "application silos" and fueling a powerful class of analytic capabilities across key business applications within the IT infrastructure stack, Alphablox 4 enables customers, partners, and integrators to truly gain a comprehensive view of their business for the first time - allowing them to make reality-based decisions at the point and time of need.

For example, leveraging Alphablox 4, a CFO could immediately intercept and analyze timely sales data from across the company, match the data with information from its supply chain management system and past sales figures, apply business logic, and then revise the sales forecast for the remainder of the year. He then can quickly and easily write back his changes to the database, simultaneously alerting all sales and line managers. These line-of-business managers could then interact with the system to reallocate resources and projections for their individual departments. This type of cross-enterprise analysis would typically need to be performed by a team of business analysts and would take weeks or months to complete. With Alphablox 4, it can be done in a matter of hours.

"Traditionally, analytics have been deployed as discrete departmental solutions that are inherently limited in scope and impact by their isolation from key sources and business processes throughout the extended enterprise," said Jacqueline Sweeney-Coolidge, research director at Hurwitz Group. "By embedding analytics into the heart of their infrastructure, companies can analyze information across departments, applications, and data sources in real time, allowing them to recognize and act upon their most profitable opportunities corporatewide. By enabling cross-functional, collaborative analytics, Alphablox is leading the industry toward more dynamic and powerful levels of analysis."

The new product comes as the result of Alphablox working in harmony with and addressing the growing needs and demands of its more than 100 customers worldwide. Leading companies including Deutsche Bank, ABN AMRO, SBC, Pfizer, and First Energy utilize Alphablox to drive more predictive and proactive business management.

Deutsche Bank is a leading international financial services provider. With more than 98,000 employees, the bank serves more than 12 million customers in more than 70 countries worldwide. Due to Alphablox's extended architecture, Deutsche Bank has just standardized many of its financial planning systems on Alphablox and has initiated linkages with the company's CRM system and multiple data sources as part of its global technology infrastructure.

"By enabling analytics in the infrastructure, Alphablox allows Deutsche Bank to extrapolate and analyze data, companywide, at the point and time of need," said Edwin Ball, global MIS director for Deutsche Bank. "By melding together data from our mission-critical business applications, Deutsche Bank is able to empower more employees to make reality-based decisions, cut departmental inefficiencies, and drive our most profitable business opportunities."

Alphablox 4: First Infrastructure that Integrates Analysis with Business Processes
Alphablox 4 provides a customizable and programmable set of analytic services that are built to integrate and enable customers, partners, and developers to quickly build and deploy collaborative analytics to the front lines for a single, cross-functional view of their business.

Extending Application Servers with the Power of Analytics
Alphablox today announced that it has signed marketing and technology integration agreements with IBM and BEA. These agreements enable Alphablox's analytic infrastructure to be directly embedded "in line" with systems and enterprise applications powered by IBM WebSphere and BEA WebLogic. This integration allows end users to explore, view, cross-examine, and present information from multiple applications and data sources in real time. By making analytics part of the IT infrastructure stack, users are able to take traditional business intelligence out of the hands of a few specialized business analysts and broadly deploy it across the value chain to hundreds or even thousands of key decision makers - be they employees, customers, or partners.

By enabling out-of-the-box integration with leading application servers, Alphablox enables customers to leverage their existing infrastructure investments for lower total cost of ownership, while providing the flexibility to adapt analytics to meet their needs today and into the future.

Easier Development and Deployment of Cross-Enterprise Analytic Intelligence
With its server-side programming model, Alphablox 4 allows customers to easily build and deploy analytics in line with critical business applications, at the point where transactions occur - be it with a CRM, SCM, or other enterprise application running on the application server. A powerful but extensible application framework enables the creation and packaging of customized analytic business logic, which can be integrated with dynamic information, business processes, and other applications running on the Web server. By bringing the logic closer to the actual data, customers can more easily customize, adapt, view and extrapolate information at the point and time of need, enabling them to take immediate action on their analysis.

"Alphablox's open, extensible architecture provides our customers and partners with the platform they need to embed analytics in line with their mission critical business applications corporatewide," said Len D'Amico, vice president of product marketing, Alphablox. "In particular, the ability to leverage an extensible, server-side programmable J2EE model will enable them to more quickly and efficiently extend analytics across their IT infrastructure, while maintaining the consistency and performance of other key business applications."

Speeding Deployment and Rapid ROI of Analytics with PlanningBlox
Alphablox also announced today the availability of PlanningBlox. PlanningBlox, pre-fabricated analytic components, are designed to speed the implementation of a new class of collaborative budgeting, demand planning, and forecasting applications. PlanningBlox allows partners and integrators to deliver integrated planning capabilities as part of a customer's comprehensive business processes. For example, historical planning and budgeting information can be easily linked to forecasting and operational analytics, allowing companies to close the loop through the execution of their plans.

PlanningBlox are also designed to be extensible, enabling partners to deliver customized applications that leverage their domain expertise, including complex business logic that adapts to a customer's specific business processes. For example, partners can extend PlanningBlox with custom presentation, collaboration, notification, and action capabilities for specific industry applications.

Alphablox 4 is entering BETA this month, with planned software availability in 90 days. The product is priced under an enterprise licensing structure, which is based on the number of users accessing the system. Application partners can leverage standard licensing terms for building applications that include Alphablox InLine Analytics.