Portland, OR -- (ReleaseWire) -- 02/02/2007 --Business Intelligence, Inc. of Portland, OR announced the release of a free software trial which is designed to help companies more easily comply with the now-infamous Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) is strictly focused on financial reporting and primarily affects public companies listed on U.S. exchanges. SOX requires the chief executive and chief financial officers of public companies to attest to the accuracy of financial reports. CEOs and CFOs must certify not only to financial statement accuracy but also that operational activities have been documented and provided to the CEO and CFO for certification. Section 404 (“Management Assessment of Internal Controls” ) requires public companies to establish adequate internal controls over financial reporting. Operational processes must be documented and practiced demonstrating the origins of data within the company’s balance sheet.

Although everyone, post Enron, now agrees that this degree of accountability is desirable, it’s also expensive. Many companies are finding that the cost of implementation can run as high as 1% to 3% of their total revenue, which could be the difference between profit and loss.

“One key to Sarbanes-Oxley 404 compliance is the ability to maintain data integrity via spreadsheet management and control,” says Scott Thompson, CEO of Business Intelligence, Inc. of Portland, OR. “Dataflow is everything. By means of MSSO Technology, multiple spreadsheet users are now able to directly access, tweak and manipulate data to their heart’s content while at the same time original data integrity, complete data traceability and data security are completely ensured. There is never a time when MSSO can’t take you back to the original, intact datasource,” says Thompson. “Which is music to the ears of any auditor or IT department, you can be sure.”

Business Intelligence, Inc. is offering its DataLinks SarbOx 404 Compliance trial free of charge to publicly traded companies in order to introduce them to the power and flexibility of MSSO Technology. “Why free? Giving companies a free product that can save hundreds of man hours and thousands upon thousands of dollars seems to be a worthwhile gesture on our part if it will get them to consider what MSSO technology can do for them,” says Thompson. The MSSO SarbOx 404 Module can be ordered directly from Business Intelligence, Inc. (www.bidata.net). The Module has the capability to either stand alone or work seamlessly within existing BI/data management systems.

MSSO (Multiple Source, Simple Output) Technology is a recently-developed, proprietary, server-less architecture which allows for smooth, seamless and secure data integration, taking data directly from disparate sources and, by means of its companion SD4E (Structured Data for Excel) Technology, makes it ready to drop directly into Excel by putting it into a single data set which Excel can instantly recognize. All of this without having to first pass through any kind of intermediary server.

MSSO/SD4E is truly server-less, providing direct access to live, raw data. No server sits between the data and the end-user yet data remains completely secure. Because it does away with the need for the data warehouse and intermediary servers altogether since it is able to access live data directly from the source (even from multiple, disparate sources), MSSO represents a fundamental and important departure from the way data has been historically accessed. Its ability to allow any Excel user to retrieve live data directly from multiple, even disparate, datasources opens up a myriad of possible applications for the Business Intelligence industry. Because live data is accessed directly by server-less means, it provides the potential for zero-latency, real time data in the truest sense of these terms.

For more information or to schedule an interview with Scott Thompson, CEO, Business Intelligence, Inc., please call 503-476-7005 or email Scott at info@bidata.net.