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SmartBatch32 helps E-gatematrix Make a Safe Landing

Company’s success is just one example of the new software’s power

ATLANTA, GEORGIA — December 8, 2003 – What’s even more satisfying than creating a cutting-edge software package? Watching a customer put the software’s top features to work to save both time and money. That’s what happened when OnLine Toolworks’(http://www.onlinetoolworks.com) customer e-gatematrix LLC (http://www.egatematrix.com) recently implemented the SmartBatch32 Batch Scheduling Tool.

OnLine Toolworks Corp. produces SmartBatch32, a leading software package that provides job scheduling and management for Windows computer systems. With ease, jobs can be logically organized and executed using the simplest or most complex user defined schedules.Jobs can also be configured such that errors are recovered/logged and "on-call" operators are notified of events via email, paging, and/or the Messenger Service.

Marianne Bergstrom, the Vice President of Product Marketing for OnLine Toolworks Corp., was not surprised by e-gatematrix’s successful implementation. “e-gatematrix is an example of a customer that can use the core capabilities of the SmartBatch32 product,” Bergstrom says. “e-gatematrix has leveraged the advanced integrated features of the product such as job sequencing, dependencies and notification. The ability for e-gatematrix to leverage advanced capabilities with an aggressive implementation schedule demonstrates the power of SmartBatch32.”

As the leader in the integration of the inflight supply chain, e-gatematrix receives hundreds of interface files every night from various airlines. Until the company discovered SmartBatch32, those files had to make the laborious trip through a DOS-based batch job schedule tool. With a batch schedule that covers nine airlines from around the globe, that made the company’s operations extremely — and needlessly — complex.

“SmartBatch32, with its clean design and impressive graphical user interface, is simple for all users,” Bergstrom notes. “And, with advanced features like an ActiveX DLL for even the most technical programmer, it proves to be both sophisticated and flexible. SmartBatch32 can support the simplest processing, or the most complicated.”

With SmartBatch32, e-gatematrix was able to address its batch job schedule problems. The company implemented the software at its Atlanta, Ga. headquarters. “The DOS-based batch job schedule tool was very difficult to use,” explains Charles Rice, e-gatematrix’s Executive Vice President and CIO. “We required a batch scheduling tool that was superior in the monitoring of files and job dependencies and also provided robust restart recovery capabilities.

“SmartBatch32 has fully automated our batch processes so that they run unattended,” Rice says. Equipped with the software, e-gatematrix has improved its batch run time by a whopping 75 percent. “Before, we were wasting time idling,” he adds.

Not anymore. “The file dependency capacity of SmartBatch32 allows the job to execute the second a dependency is met, whether it is a file arriving or prerequisite job that finished successfully,” explains Scott Sorel, e-gatematrix’s Director of Application Development. “It used to be that the file would be received at 8 p.m. and the job wouldn’t start until 9 p.m. Now, the file gets there at 8 p.m. and the job starts at 8:01 p.m.”

If that file doesn’t arrive by 9 p.m., SmartBatch32 will automatically notify e-gatematrix — as well as its hosting provider, SunGard — via e-mail and pager. That doesn’t mean an e-gatematrix employee has to high-tail it to the office. The SmartBatch32 browser can be accessed from home. “With SmartBatch32's Web browser client, no software needs to be installed to monitor batch processes,” Sorel says. “Operators, developers, help desk, and management have access to vital information in an intuitive interface.”

All of that translates into big cost-savings for e-gatematrix. “SmartBatch32's failure detection and alerting features lowers e-gatematrix's total cost of ownership because we no longer have to have personnel dedicated to parsing log files every night upon a job's completion,” Sorel explains. Instead, SmartBatch32 notifies the support personnel upon a failure, whether it's by email, text messaging, or pager.

“We are extremely pleased that e-gatematrix has been able to take advantage of our software in such an important way and see immediate gains,” Bergstrom says. “e-gatematrix provides a valuable service to its customers and we at OnLine ToolWorks are excited that e-gatematrix is able to grow their application, service and customer base with the help of the SmartBatch32 product.

“Many companies have found SmartBatch32 to be beneficial in the automation of applications and database activity and such as coordinating the load of legacy data,” she adds. “Many of our customers have benefited from ease of distributed processing amongst many computers with our Enterprise Edition and Remote Agent processing. Another area of high interest and return on investment includes the automation of reporting such as Crystal or Cognos. In the reporting area, we have provided our customers with a cost effective means to get more out of their reporting infrastructure.”

SmartBatch32 continues to provide its leadership in ease-of-use, sophistication, flexibility and affordability with the release of SmartBatch 2004. SmartBatch 2004, to be released in early 2004, will provide the Best-of -Breed job scheduling and application automation solution for Microsoft .NET applications.

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