Public Sector Delivers Vital Information to Knowledge Workers, Communities, and Citizens With Information Builders WebFOCUS

State and Local Governments Rely on Business Intelligence for Outward-Facing Applications


NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - July 31, 2008) - Information Builders, the independent leader in pervasive business intelligence (BI) systems, today announced that public sector organizations, including city, county, state, and federal government entities, are delivering outward-facing BI to their agents and citizens. Today, government organizations have more information and financial demands to fulfill than ever before -- from day-to-day public safety and security concerns to real-time public data access and management requirements. The sudden increase of dynamic Web-based interactions is driving a re-examination of what it means to deliver powerful BI models.

With a well-established foothold in the public sector, from law enforcement organizations to federal agencies, Information Builders has expanded the reach of its highly intuitive and scalable WebFOCUS BI platform to support the information access needs of various communities, including:

Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System

Hailed by FBI officials as the first of its kind in the country, the Pennsylvania State Police's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Website was built using WebFOCUS technology. WebFOCUS helps local police fight crime more effectively while giving citizens 24x7 access to crime statistics for towns, counties, regions, college campuses, and the state as a whole. The site features real-time statistical analyses, queries that anyone can customize, and automated file transfer to the FBI for its national crime database. The system has also been successfully adapted by Missouri State Police.

New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Restaurant Inspection Information

New York City's Department of Health officials created a restaurant inspection self-service application that has garnered five-star reviews from inside and outside of government. This heavily trafficked site lets users search for their favorite restaurants, bakeries, and take-outs by name or location and check out any recent violations.

Erlanger, Kentucky Police Department

Information Builders used WebFOCUS and Arc/IMS from ESRI to create an interactive crime portal, which displays real-time views of incidents, arrests, 911 calls, and other events throughout the dispatch area. Erlanger citizens will also be able to access some of this information via a public-facing Web site, so they can check on crime occurring in their neighborhoods.

City of Houston Police Department

The City of Houston uses WebFOCUS to provide citizens a monthly breakdown, by police districts and beats, of crimes reported. By selecting which area of the city to research from a clickable, graphic map or a list, they can select a specific beat from the district map to access a table containing the stats for the crimes in the selected beat and month. The table shows the type of offense, date and time, district and beat, premise code of the location, block numbers, and street name.

City of Richardson, Texas

As part of its effort to revitalize the once booming hub of the Dallas Telecom Corridor, the City of Richardson adapted Information Builders WebFOCUS to support its reporting needs. The Neighborhood Services group, charged with enforcing city codes and enhancing communication with citizens, has created external reports for the general public through which WebFOCUS maintains a running history of violations and citations, so citizens can see, for example, what inspectors are doing about a neighbor's fence that is in need of repair. WebFOCUS offers details about citations issued and all follow-up activities.

"State and federal government organizations have vast data stores and have relied on WebFOCUS to provide access and analysis for a variety of vital public services," said Information Builders CEO Gerald Cohen. "The growing demand for self-service government and public appetite for information has driven a new breed of BI applications. Our software is well-suited to deliver access to vast data within a framework that is easy and intuitive enough for any citizen to navigate to get the answers they need. This usability is the same feature that has driven adoption in public and private sector customers and powered some of the largest user bases in the market."

About Information Builders

As a leading independent business intelligence (BI) company for the past 30 years, Information Builders has provided innovative solutions to more than 12,000 customers, including most of the Fortune 100 and numerous U.S. federal government agencies. The company's flagship WebFOCUS product is the world's most widely used BI platform. Superior architecture and intuitive nature enables WebFOCUS to address the needs of everyone in the extended global enterprise -- executive, analytical, operational, and beyond. It provides the agility to adapt to changing business conditions with the security, scalability, and flexibility to support dozens to millions of users.

Unique to the company is the integration expertise it brings to the BI market. Information Builders iWay Software suite solves complex integration problems with pre-built components that require minimal custom programming. The award-winning combination of WebFOCUS and iWay give Information Builders customers the ability to embrace the company motto: "Because Everyone Makes Decisions."

Information Builders is committed to customer service excellence with a Professional Services division that specializes in building custom applications using WebFOCUS and iWay Software. Headquartered in New York City with 90 offices worldwide, the company employs 1,450 people and has more than 350 business partners. Visit http://www.informationbuilders.com.

Contact Information: Press Contacts: Kathleen Moran Information Builders (917) 339-6313 Stephanie Fallon Emerge PR (617) 729-3176