Colleges and Universities Make QAS Part of Their Data Integrity Strategy

BOSTON, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- QAS, a part of Experian(R) specializing in address verification and cleansing products, announced today that 90 colleges and universities across North America have purchased QuickAddress software in the first two quarters of the company's fiscal year, bringing its total higher education customer base to nearly 300 schools. This demonstrates tremendous year-over-year growth for QAS and is evidence that its address verification software is gaining rapid market adoption.

Of particular note in QAS' new customer cache is the University of Maine System (UMS), which purchased QAS' flagship product, QuickAddress Pro to outfit address entry points in admissions, finance, human resource and alumni departments across its seven statewide campuses. QAS will be used initially in conjunction with UMS' PeopleSoft Campus Solutions application, which is a comprehensive suite of software specifically designed for student administration, and later with SunGard Higher Education's Advance donor management system.

"We selected QAS because we felt it best addressed our need to manage duplicate addresses in the two databases where bad data costs us the most time, money, and quality service: Advancement and Admissions," said Cindy Mitchell, director of Administrative Systems Development and Support for the University of Maine System.

Many of the schools adopting QAS products in the last six months intend to use them with PeopleSoft's Campus Solutions. Among those are California State University at Los Angeles and Massachusetts Bay Community College.

Several of the State Universities of New York have also purchased address verification products from QAS in the past few months. SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome and Ulster County Community College both intend to deploy QAS' products on campus in conjunction with SunGard Higher Education solutions, while SUNY Geneseo will utilize it specifically with SunGard Higher Education's SmartCall telefundraising system in its annual fund call center.

Other schools new to QAS this year include Doane College in Crete, NE and Odessa College, in Odessa, TX, both Datatel institutions using QuickAddress. Odessa College purchased QuickAddress Pro and QuickAddress Batch in August and plans to deploy the software in all of its record processing departments. Datatel provides colleges and universities fully-integrated administrative software systems and e-marketing solutions.

According to Chuck Everett, director of Data Processing & Colleague Services at Odessa, QAS improves the data put into the school's database while also speeding up data processing -- in essence doing two jobs at once.

Several existing QAS customers have purchased additional address verification products and services to enhance their address verification strategy. The University of Ottawa, Canada's university, became the first Canadian school to go enterprise-wide with QAS. The school was originally a customer in the alumni relations department but opted to expand its use after the school's central IT group saw a need for address verification across campus. Additionally, the University of New Mexico extended its use of QAS to include QuickAddress Batch. This back-end data cleansing solution compliments the front-end address verification strategy already in place at the school.

QAS' address verification products confirm addresses against official postal authority records improving overall data quality at schools. Unlike other address cleansing products, QuickAddress is a front-end solution in that it identifies and fixes address errors before they are entered into a school's database. QAS works with any of the higher education administrative suites and can also be configured to verify addresses submitted through a school's self-service application.

For more information on QAS' suite of address verification products call (888) 727-8330 or visit http://www.qas.com/us

About QAS, a part of Experian

Established in 1990 and today a wholly owned subsidiary of Experian, QAS is a pioneer in address data quality software. The company's QuickAddress products capture, verify, clean and maintain address records within any company. The products are based on data secured from national postal authorities. QAS has over 10,000 customers worldwide in the retail, education, healthcare, insurance, finance, travel, telecommunications, government, mail-order and membership industries. The company has multiple offices throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit the QAS website at http://www.qas.com/us.

About Experian

Experian(R) is a global leader in providing information, analytical and marketing services to organizations and consumers to help manage the risk and reward of commercial and financial decisions. Combining its unique information tools and deep understanding of individuals, markets and economies, Experian partners with organizations around the world to establish and strengthen customer relationships and provide their businesses with competitive advantage. For consumers, Experian delivers critical information that enables them to make financial and purchasing decisions with greater control and confidence. Clients include organizations from financial services, retail and catalog, telecommunications, utilities, media, insurance, automotive, leisure, e-commerce, manufacturing, property and government sectors.

Experian Group Limited is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. It has corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and operational headquarters in Costa Mesa, Calif., and Nottingham, UK. Experian employs approximately 15,500 people in 36 countries worldwide, supporting clients in more than 65 countries. Annual sales are in excess of $3.8 billion.

For more information, visit the Group's Web site on http://www.experiangroup.com.

The word "Experian" is a registered trademark in the EU and other countries and is owned by Experian Ltd. and/or its associated companies.

Trademark Information: SunGard, the SunGard logo, Advance and SmartCall are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.