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Red Brick Acquires Data Warehousing Products From Engage Technologies

        Product Integration Creates Red Brick Data Warehouse Platform;
         Enables Next-Generation Data Warehouse Application Solutions

    ANDOVER, Mass., Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Red Brick(R) Systems, Inc.
(Nasdaq: REDB), The Data Warehouse Company(TM), today announced it has signed
an agreement with Engage Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of CMG Information
Services, Inc., (CMGI), to acquire Engage.Fusion(TM), Engage.Discover(TM) and
their shared, object-oriented metadata facility.
    These products, currently technology under development, will be integrated
with Red Brick Warehouse(TM), Red Brick's relational database specialized for
data warehouse applications, to create a next-generation, end-to-end data
warehouse platform of products.  The platform will be designed to generate
high-performance data warehouses, and to manage, store and query complex data
up to multi-terabytes in size.
    The forthcoming Red Brick data warehouse platform will enable IT
professionals, business analysts and application partners to quickly and
completely design, develop, operate and administer high-performance data
warehouses while gaining a competitive edge in massive user and data
scalability and complex data management.  In addition, the platform will
provide Red Brick with the ability to deliver next-generation application
suites in rapidly expanding markets such as Internet commerce.
    Red Brick and Engage Technologies also signed a cross-reseller agreement
for the promotion and resale of Red Brick Warehouse and the Engage Suite of
products, Engage's one-to-one Web marketing solution set.  This results in a
new distribution channel for Red Brick Warehouse, as it becomes the preferred
database underpinning the Engage Product Suite.  It also results in a new Red
Brick application product offering for customers who seek an integrated,
highly scalable and high-performance Web marketing solution.
    "Red Brick and Engage have both designed their products to be optimized
for high-end data warehouse solutions.  The combination of the two is a
natural technology fit," said Chris Erickson, president and CEO of Red Brick.
"We're also very pleased that this acquisition will lead to an ongoing
partnership with CMGI, a leader in Web application development.  We believe
that the integration of the Engage products with Red Brick will secure our
position as 'The Data Warehouse Company,' and give us a significant lead in
the explosion of data warehousing on the Web."
    "Red Brick is taking the obvious next step in its evolution as a
preeminent data warehousing vendor by acquiring best-of-breed peripheral
components," said Wayne Eckerson, director, Business Intelligence and Data
Warehouse Service at Patricia Seybold Group. "The deal will give Red Brick a
strong data warehouse platform -- a suite of tools integrated with Red Brick
Warehouse -- which can support a variety of industry applications, such as the
Engage solution for one-to-one marketing on the Web.  Bundling Red Brick's
specialized database engine with industry applications makes a lot of sense
for Red Brick and its application partners."

    The Engage Products
    Engage Technologies' full Engage Product Suite is a standards-based,
enterprise-class set of software solutions designed to help companies
individually distinguish, understand, and interact with anonymous prospects
and customers in personalized marketing, sales and service relationships via
the Web.  Within the Engage Suite, Engage.Fusion and Engage.Discover monitor
Web usage, and extract, sort and query Web user data.  This requires the
ability to manage the multiple terabytes of clickstream data found in a Web
environment.
    Engage.Fusion and Engage.Discover will bring powerful data management
capabilities to users of Red Brick Warehouse.  Engage.Fusion provides high-
performance, highly scalable and easy-to-use data warehouse generation
capabilities.  Engage.Discover is designed to provide iterative query and
analysis, optimized for highly complex queries, against very large data sets
that are subject to frequent schema changes.

    The Red Brick Data Warehouse Platform
    The integration of the Engage product technology with Red Brick's existing
product line will result in an end-to-end, high-performance data warehouse
platform that will be open to most databases, data warehouses and data
marts, including those from Oracle, Informix and Microsoft. This data
warehouse platform will, in conjunction with business partners and consulting
resources, provide Red Brick customers with a complete solution for quickly
implementing successful data warehouse projects that require multi-terabyte
data scalability and involve high data complexity.
    The integrated platform will also provide a solid technical base from
which Red Brick will be able to launch high-demand, specialized application
solutions.  The analysis of large data streams has widespread business
application, beyond the clickstream market, in Red Brick-targeted industries
such as retail, healthcare, financial services and telecommunications.
    The acquisition has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors
of both Red Brick and CMG Information Services.  Under the terms of the
agreement, Red Brick acquires Engage.Fusion, Engage.Discover, a shared, ODI-
based metadata facility, and the 23-person marketing and development teams for
the product technology.  The marketing and development teams will continue to
work in Andover, Massachusetts and will be joined by additional Red Brick
field personnel.
    The company expects to take a charge of approximately $12 million for the
purchased in-process technology from Engage.  The purchase consideration will
be in stock and cash.

    Pricing and Availability
    Red Brick's integrated data warehouse products are expected to be
available during the first half of 1998. Pricing will be announced at that
time.

    About CMGI
    CMGI, a company with more than 25 years of experience in direct database
marketing, either directly owns, or is a major shareholder in a number of
well-known popular Web ventures including Lycos, Geo-Cities, AdSmart and
Planet Direct -- each of which generates millions of hits per day.  The suite
of data collection and analysis products from Engage builds on its parent
company's expertise.  These products, as a system, are designed to support in
excess of 100 million transactions per day and to analyze multiple terabytes
of stored data for market trends.

    About Red Brick
    Red Brick Systems, Inc., based in Los Gatos, Calif., is a leading provider
of comprehensive, integrated, high-performance products for data warehousing.
Its flagship product, Red Brick Warehouse 5.0, is the world's fastest and most
scalable relational database for data warehousing, including data marts,
online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining.  Red Brick helps
businesses transform data into information for faster, superior decision-
making.
    Information about Red Brick is available on the World Wide Web at
http://www.redbrick.com.  News releases and corporate background information may also
be retrieved by fax. For an index of available materials, please call (800)
758-5804, and enter PIN #105756.
    Red Brick and the Red Brick logo are registered trademarks, and The Data
Warehouse Company and Performance is Everything are trademarks of Red Brick
Systems, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property
of their respective holders.


SOURCE Red Brick Systems, Inc.




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CONTACT:
Carolyn Hughes of Red Brick Systems, Inc.,
408-399-7216 chughes@redbrick.com