OECD Signs Multiyear Agreement for Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server

Thousands of new users are expected to subscribe to OECD's worldwide Internet-based Commercial Data Service, powered by the Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server

Ottawa, Canada – November 17, 1999 – Ivation Datasystems Inc. announced today that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has signed a multiyear agreement to adopt the Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server as its standard Intranet and Internet data-publishing software tool. Beyond 20/20 is the market-leading family of software products for data tabulation, dissemination, and publishing applications.

The Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server will be used for:

• The OECD's worldwide Internet-based Commercial Data Service
• Publishing and disseminating free data from the OECD Web site
• Data access by internal OECD staff

OECD data products are used by academics, business leaders, governments, and policy makers worldwide and are often quoted by leading economic organizations, press agencies, and research establishments.

This agreement builds on the already extensive use of Beyond 20/20 by the OECD. The OECD currently licenses the Beyond 20/20 Publication Browser for over 32 information products on CD-ROM.

The OECD selected the Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server for its intranet and Internet data publishing applications because of its ease of use, high performance, and fast "time to publish." Because the Web Data Server uses the same Beyond 20/20 files as the Beyond 20/20 Windows-based products, the OECD is able to publish its existing Beyond 20/20 data on its internal networks and Web site in just minutes.

"One of our main goals is to improve accessibility and usability of our statistical data. Clearly, the Internet offers the best means to maximize accessibility, and with the Beyond 20/20 Web Data Server, we're confident we're making our data user friendly as well." – OECD

About the OECD

The OECD groups 29 member countries in an organization that provides governments with a setting in which to research, discuss, and develop economic and social policy. These discussions make for better-informed decisions within individual governments across the spectrum of public policy issues and clarify the effects of national policies on the international community. The OECD includes six semiautonomous bodies: the International Energy Agency, the Nuclear Energy Agency, the European Conference of Ministers of Transport, the Development Centre, the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, and the Club de Sahel.

The OECD has expanded to include Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Korea. And there are many more contacts with the rest of the world through programs with countries in the former Soviet bloc, Asia, and Latin America.

Over the past 37 years, the OECD has become one of the world's largest and most reliable sources of statistical, economic, and social data. It also researches social changes and evolving patterns in trade, the environment, agriculture, technology, taxation, and more. The collected data, research, and analyses are published by the OECD in the form of approximately 250 databases, studies, and periodicals a year. For more information, visit the OECD Web site.

About Beyond 20/20 Inc.

Used worldwide by organizations and individuals who must find the knowledge held in data, Beyond 20/20 is emerging as the world's leading software product for disseminating and exploring numerical data. Beyond 20/20, with its unique characteristics, ease-of-use, and superior performance in publishing, examining, visualizing, and manipulating socioeconomic statistics, provides measurable productivity improvements to both data publishers and data consumers. Through both its product and service divisions, Beyond 20/20 Inc. actively works with its customers to implement and support data access and dissemination solutions and technologies.