Cygron establishes its worldwide headquarters in Singapore

Singapore, 26 April 2000 - Cygron, a business unit of Mindmaker Incorporated, announces the establishment of its worldwide headquarters in Singapore. A developer of business intelligence and decision support applications, Cygron Pte Ltd has been incorporated in Singapore to take advantage of the world class infrastructure and the availability of advanced technology to reach out to the global market.

The Singapore office will be the worldwide operational headquarters for Cygron as well as the regional headquarters for the company's Asia Pacific operations. According to the chief executive officer, Roger Wolf, "Singapore is globally recognised as the hub for telecommunications and distribution in the region, and thus offers us an ideal base from which to carry out the sales, marketing, and customer support operations. With the Republic's excellent infrastructure, it is operationally viable to manage a large territory from here ". Cygron Pte Ltd is also expected to establish other regional offices in the US and Europe by the end of the fourth quarter 2000.

Burgeoning Business Intelligence Market
Cygron has been established to develop, and market, compelling applications and solutions for enterprise computing and the Internet market segments. Business intelligence and data analysis is rapidly becoming a significant business issue and with the advent of the Internet and increased transaction of information over this medium, it is even more critical to have faster access to data and to be able to use it more effectively. Businesses and individuals today are faced with a deluge of information that requires a powerful business intelligence solution to convert raw data into significant business advantage. However, ineffective data warehousing, mining and analysis adds another inefficient strata of process and procedure that could even be detrimental to the organisation, especially in areas such as Customer Relationship Management, business performance analysis and supply chain management.

"This is a significant and developing market segment especially in enterprise computing where business managers and Internet marketing and content managers are today required to measure operational performance and predict trends and market behaviour. Cygron, has developed a highly robust and flexible business intelligence tool to meet this need, providing cutting edge technology and applications for the Internet age," said Wolf.

In conjunction with the launch of the company, Cygron announces the worldwide debut of its flagship business intelligence product, DataScope Professional. Developed on a Windows operating system, the award-winning software is a data-mining and decision support application that offers an unrivalled ease of use, supported through a highly intuitive "click and point" interface. By eliminating the need for long and complex training and highly specialised technical knowledge, DataScope functions as a desktop management information tool for users at all levels throughout the enterprise. Based on advanced graphical data visualisation technology, DataScope can be applied to a wide range of key business intelligence functions where information gleaned from corporate databases can yield significant results in business strategy including financial data analysis, customer relationship management and retail operation analysis. With an aggressive plan to claim a stake in this burgeoning market, DataScope offers the business user the power of data-mining, and real time decision making, all supported through a rich, graphical and data analysis technology.

Said Dr Barry Shepherd, vice president of Technical Marketing, Cygron: "The worldwide market for business intelligence applications and services is estimated to grow by up to 50% over the next five years. As more and more emphasis is placed on real time and intuitive decision support, the time is now right for a product like DataScope".

Scheduled for launch in late May, the flagship product DataScope Professional, was awarded the 'Best in Comdex 1999' for its innovative, rich and powerful architecture at last year's Comdex exhibition in Las Vegas. Targeted at the business users, such as financial analysts, business managers, customer relationship managers (CRMs), engineers, sales and other financial professionals, DataScope will be distributed through a combination of direct and indirect channels across the region following its launch.

Singapore a global platform for Cygron
Commented Wolf on the launch and marketing plans, "Singapore provides us with the ideal platform to access the global technology market where advanced technology, capital markets and world class infrastructure are critical to the distribution, sales and marketing functions".

Added Shepherd, "we will be establishing marketing and technical support centres in the US and Europe to support these markets. In addition, we are in the process of establishing regional and global channel networks of Value Added Resellers (VARS), Systems Integrators and specialised software development partners to address specific vertical markets".

Funded and supported by Mindmaker Inc, a California-based technology incubator, Cygron Pte Ltd, is currently developing other business intelligence tools and applications. The management's charter is to set up a strong people and infrastructure network throughout the target territories, supported by prominent Cygron brand and market equity.

"Initially we are focusing on establishing partner, channels and sales infrastructures in our key markets including ASEAN, Europe and the US. We feel we have to establish brand and market equity in these territories before launching into other markets. It is also important for us to develop our infrastructure in stages as these will also be the channels through which other business intelligence products from the Cygron stable would be distributed," reiterated Wolf.

About Cygron
Cygron Pte Ltd is a Singapore based technology company manufacturing business intelligence products for enterprise computing and world wide web.

Established in April 2000, Cygron has initiated its global expansion strategy with a presence in Singapore. Other offices have been planned for the US and Europe by the fourth quarter 2000. A business unit of Mindmaker Inc, Cygron has a research and development centre based in Hungary where product design and production is undertaken.

A 'Best of Comdex' winner at Comdex Fall '99, Cygron's flagship product, DataScope, is a professional datamining and decision support tool. The software helps extract the knowledge hidden in data, understand relationships and make more effective decisions. Special visualisation techniques support human thinking and intuition throughout the data analysis, facilitating easy trend, pattern and exception recognition. Using an advanced decision support algorithm, DataScope can rank and compare decision alternatives based on decision preferences.