A3 SOLUTONS SHIPS A3 EXPENSE MODELING™

First Out-of-the-Box Software Solution for Enterprise Budgeting, Planning and Reporting

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — November 12, 2002 — A3 Solutions, Inc., a pioneer in spreadsheet-centric software technology, announced today the general availability of A3 Expense Modeling™, the first out-of-the-box software solution for budgeting, planning and reporting. Combining Web, spreadsheet and OLAP technologies in a simple-to-use application, A3 Expense Modeling reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) of budgeting and planning technology.

"A3 Expense Modeling changes the economics of enterprise budgeting and planning," said Robert Lautt, chief executive officer and president at A3 Solutions. "Our Web architecture, and rich, innovative feature set goes way beyond the scope of most of today's planning software. And our usage-based pricing means customers pay only for what they use when they use it. A3 Expense Modeling costs a fraction of the industry leader, deploys in a fraction of the time, and its feature set is more comprehensive. What is really exciting is that our new usage-based pricing means customers can freely increase and decrease their usage without penalty or risk."

A3 Solutions achieves these cost efficiencies by making maximum leverage of infrastructure that large enterprises already have in place: spreadsheets, the knowledge within spreadsheets and the multi-dimensional analytic environment of OLAP. A3 Expense Modeling is appropriate for any enterprise standardized on J2EE, OLAP and Microsoft Excel™.

What's Your Number?

A3 Expense Modeling is designed to help both financial and operational planning teams manage and optimize resource usage enterprise-wide.

"Every planning team within the enterprise has to hit a 'number,' and every individual on that team has a 'number,'" said Stuart Ratner, chief operations officer at A3 Solutions. "More than any other technology, A3 Expense Modeling helps every one manage to their 'number'... and then get home for dinner. With A3 Expense Modeling, planning teams are able to automate more planning processes, giving them more time to actually do their jobs."

Built to J2EE specifications, A3 Expense Modeling works with established Web application servers including IBM WebSphere, BEA WebLogic and Apache Tomcat. The software is easy to deploy and can be managed by non-technical personnel. Recognizing that real-world issues make planning more than a once-a-year activity, A3 Expense Modeling is designed to be easily reconfigured to add new reports, analyses, and access to new or different databases as needed.

Key Features

A3 Expense Modeling supports:

• Personalized Web access to budgets, forecasts and reports.
• Submission tracking and approvals.
• Users work conveniently and productively in Excel where they receive dynamically generated models. When their budgets are complete, they submit them across the Web with a push of a button.
• Financial and operational spreadsheet data is captured centrally in a multidimensional OLAP repository, and becomes instantly available for enterprise-wide visibility and analysis by department, product, project and business unit.
• Users access and create variance analysis reports to contrast budgets with actuals, forecast and prior year.
• Collaborative planning features, including discussions and posting of planning-specific information and announcements on the A3 Modeling Portal. All Portal features can be administered by non-technical personnel.
• A3 Expense Modeling supports both online and offline work modes.
• Users can include line item detail, they can insert new expense accounts into their budgets, and they can even permanently link their homegrown spreadsheets directly into A3 Expense Models, significantly increasing productivity and eliminating re-keying of information.

Availability

A3 Expense Modeling is available now at prices starting at $32,500 installed. To learn more about A3 Expense Modeling, please contact A3 at sales@a3si.com or call (800)-666-CUBE.

About A3 Solutions

A3 Solutions is an innovator in the Corporate Performance Management market (CPM, BPM, EPM). Leveraging its advanced analytic application technology, A3 Solutions competes successfully with market leaders by delivering more powerful budgeting, forecasting, management reporting and executive dashboard solutions that deploy more quickly and at lower total cost. Come to our website (www.a3solutions.com) and see how American Airlines, Avon, Cox Communications, Johnson & Johnson, McDonald's, Safeway, Toyota, Williams Sonoma, and Verizon use software from A3 to reduce the time and labor associated with spreadsheets, increase confidence in reporting and analysis, enjoy more timely and detailed visibility into operational performance, and make decisions more quickly and confidently. A3 Solutions' partners include leading enterprise technology providers such as Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT, News), IBM (NYSE: IBM, News), and Hyperion Solutions (Nasdaq: HYSL, News). A3 Solutions is headquartered in San Francisco, California. To learn more about the company or its flagship product, A3 Modeling, visit www.a3solutions.com, send an email to sales@a3solutions.com, or call (800) 666-CUBE (2823) or 415-356-2300.