RER ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF METRIXND® VERSION 3.0 SOFTWARE FOR ENERGY AND PRICE FORECASTING Creating Fast and Accurate Forecasts at the Core of Energy Business

Regional Economic Research, Inc. (RER), the leader in energy forecasting, announces the latest release of its flagship product MetrixND®. One of the exciting new features is the optional licensing of Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) for inclusion into this version of MetrixND. With this added functionality, MetrixNDs versatility is unparalleled.

The integration of Microsoft VBA into MetrixND provides RERs clients and partners with the industry standard development environment to easily extend, customize and integrate MetrixND with other energy-specific applications. Microsoft VBA applies the full power of Microsoft Visual Basic to packaged applications, enabling users to create customized, integrated solutions that meet specific business needs. By integrating VBA into MetrixND customers, developers and partners can modify user interfaces, extend functionality and connect easily with other mission-critical applications to create fully integrated business solutions," said Robert Green, lead product manager for the Developer and Platform Evangelism Division at Microsoft Corp.

First released in 1997, MetrixND has a large and varied user community consisting of over 100 utilities, energy service providers, municipals, and ISO organizations. MetrixND provides energy service providers with a tool that is used for a variety of retail forecasting and profiling problems. MetrixND is used to tackle applications ranging from monthly revenue forecasting to hourly load forecasting. If you can dream it, MetrixND can model it," states Rhonda Orr, Systems Engineer for Manitoba Hydro.

RERs continuous refinement of the product offers users new functionality aimed at building the most accurate forecasts possible. "MetrixND's development is client driven. MetrixND users appreciate the continuous added functionality that allows them to do their jobs better and keep up with new technology," states Frank Monforte, Vice President of Forecasting at RER. New functionality, especially the inclusion of Microsoft VBA, allows RER to develop more and more sophisticated systems." Other new features in MetrixND version 3.0, include the following:

•   Hourly Model. This new object provides rapid development of hourly and sub-hourly forecasting models.
•   GARCH. This extension to the regression and neural network frameworks allow modeling of the error around a point forecast.
•   Model Comparison. This new object supports model selection by providing quick comparisons of alternative model specifications.

Founded in 1979, RER is a consulting and software development firm devoted to the development and implementation of flexible forecasting tools and services. RERs strong record in energy economics, coupled with over two decades of experience in the design and implementation of forecasting solutions, puts RER at the forefront of energy forecasting. For more information, contact RER at 1-800-755-9585 or info@rer.com. A demonstration of MetrixND is available on RERs website at http://www.rer.com.

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