IBM's Visual Warehouse Solution Saves Time, Delivers Information Quickly to
Decision-Makers, Increases Productivity in Workgroups

NEW YORK, May 10, 1995 . . . IBM, the world's largest software vendor,
today announced the Visual Warehouse Solution, a sophisticated yet
easy-to-use set of software and services that helps customers use data
from a variety of sources to make accurate analyses and informed
decisions.

The low-cost Visual Warehouse Solution increases productivity and provides
a competitive edge through the delivery of information to key
decision-makers. It is particularly beneficial for departments and
workgroups that need to create and manage a data warehouse in a LAN-based
environment. Running initially on OS/2*, the Visual Warehouse Solution can
also serve as the fundamental building block for an enterprise-wide
Information Warehouse* solution, enabling corporate IS management to offer
a powerful and efficient integrated data warehouse and decision-support
environment to a broad range of business departments.

Leveraging information assets is facilitated today through data
warehousing. The technology, first introduced by IBM in the early 1990s,
enables businesses to create new information out of existing data that can
be used where it is most needed.

Chris Arnold, vice president of data management, IBM Software Solutions
Division, said, "IBM's Information Warehouse solution offers unique value
for customers through its range of data warehousing alternatives. Our
low-cost Visual Warehouse gives workgroups the right information at the
right time. Our solution also provides IS departments the ability to
manage growth and integration as businesses implement enterprise-wide data
warehousing."

         Complete, Flexible, and Integrated Solution

Several components comprise the IBM Visual Warehouse Solution.  Unique to
IBM, these components purchased together provide workgroups with the
capabilities they need to get a data warehouse up and running.  Component
highlights are:

     o    Visual Warehouse enables users with minimal
          technology skills to build, operate and maintain a
          data warehouse at the department level.

     o    DataGuide* for OS/2 allows users to easily search and
          retrieve data using commonly understood business
          terms, through metadata provided by Visual
          Warehouse.

     o    Visual Query and Charts, functions of IBM WorkGroup,
          facilitate the development of queries, charts and
          reports.
     o    DB2* for OS/2 and DDCS* for OS/2 manage and
          support access to Visual Warehouse databases.

     o    Visual Warehouse Adapters enable users to extract
          data from non-relational data sources such as IMS,
          VSAM and MVS flat files, or VM flat files.

     o    Services provide the support to design, deliver, and
          implement a robust data warehouse solution.

Taken together, these components offer a comprehensive, flexible,
cost-effective and integrated approach to data warehousing, and allow
businesses to take advantage of the technology very quickly.

The University of Missouri, like many organizations across the country, had
more than enough information to manage its operations. But the information
was not easily accessible or available to the decision-makers within the
university. While an enterprise-wide data warehouse solution was being
implemented, the university needed a tool that allowed all users --
students, staff, and faculty -- immediate and controlled access to data
such as names, addresses, and course information. The university turned to
IBM.

"Prior to working with IBM, some of our data was inconsistent, incorrect,
and hard to retrieve," said Linsey Williams, MIS director, University of
Missouri. "The data sources used to make decisions were almost always
different, and we were not able to integrate data from various
applications. IBM helped us hasten our data warehouse development and
support work. In less than two days, Visual Warehouse was installed and
operational in the university."

                     Easy Access to Data

The IBM Visual Warehouse Solution enables decision-makers to obtain data
across the enterprise. This facilitates the user's ability to perform the
task at hand, while allowing the IS department to focus on the effective
distribution of data.

Visual Warehouse also offers users sophisticated levels of data
manipulation. In addition to data extraction, ad hoc queries and what-if
analyses, Visual Warehouse provides aggregations, summaries, histories and
versioning.

Visual Warehouse facilitates the extraction of data from a variety of
sources within the workgroup or across the enterprise. Built on the IBM
DB2 family of relational database products, Visual Warehouse can also
access data on Oracle and Sybase databases, and non-relational sources
such as IMS*, VSAM, MVS, VM, and OS/2 flat files.

                 Pricing and Availability

The IBM Visual Warehouse Solution and its individual components will be
available to a selected set of customers in the U.S. and Canada starting
on June 16. The one-time charge license fee for Visual Warehouse starts at
$24,000. The license fee for the combined Visual Warehouse Solution
software will be $32,500; Visual Warehouse Services will be priced
separately, based on a customer's needs. Visual Warehouse is recommended
for installations supporting up to 30 users and departmental databases up
to 50 gigabytes.

IBM is the world's largest producer of database management software in the
industry today. Eighty percent of the FORTUNE 500, including the top 100
companies, rely on DB2 database solutions to manage data on mainframes,
minicomputers, RISC workstations and personal computers.

IBM Software Solutions provides data management, application development
and workgroup solutions for mission-critical applications on PCs,
workstations, LANs and host systems. More information about IBM Visual
Warehouse can be found on the World Wide Web on the IBM Home Page
(http://www.ibm.com) and the IBM Software Page (click on "Products and
Services" on the IBM Home Page).

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