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North Hill Portfolio News

3.27.2007
Metatomix Named "Cool Vendor" by Leading Analyst Firm

Vendors Selected for the "Cool Vendor Report" are Innovative, Impactful and Intriguing

Waltham, Mass. - March 27, 2007 - Metatomix, Inc. today announced it has been included in the list of "Cool vendors" in the data management and integration report by Gartner, Inc. The report, published on March 14, highlights companies that offer "innovative approaches and technology for searching structured data assets, integrating structured and unstructured data, improving the scalability of data warehouses and facilitating data governance activities."

"We're honored to be named a Gartner 'Cool Vendor,' which we believe has long been a noteworthy distinction in the industry," said Jeff Dickerson, president and CEO. "We share Gartner's view that '…organizations seeking to solve data integration problems that extend across data silos and across the breadth of the content continuum must wrestle with complex semantic models.' Metatomix semantically reconciles data silos into one common model of consistent meaning, enabling integration, correlation and insights not achievable with non semantic approaches."

About Gartner's Cool Vendors Selection Process

Gartner's listing does not constitute an exhaustive list of vendors in any given technology area, but rather is designed to highlight interesting, new and innovative vendors, products and services. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness of a particular purpose.

Gartner defines a cool vendor as a company that offers technologies or solutions that are: Innovative, enable users to do things they couldn't do before; Impactful, have, or will have, business impact (not just technology for the sake of technology); Intriguing, have caught Gartner's interest or curiosity in approximately the past six months.

About Metatomix, Inc.


Founded in 2000, Metatomix (www.metatomix.com) is the leading provider of semantic customer data integration (CDI) solutions to law enforcement, courts,financial services and other customers. Metatomix solutions intelligently link customer data from existing disparate systems to create a common semantic understanding of customers across the enterprise. Using this contextual understanding, Metatomix solutions enable real-time analysis and insights, orchestrating coordinated responses amongst existing systems to optimized customer response and relationships. For more information, visit the Metatomix Web site at http://www.metatomix.com.

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3.20.2007
Metatomix Names Jeff Dickerson as President and CEO and John Landry to Board of Directors

Waltham, Mass. - March 20, 2007 - Metatomix, Inc., a leading provider of integrated justice solutions to state and local governments, today announced two key additions to the executive team. Effective immediately, Jeff Dickerson has been appointed as president and chief executive officer and John Landry has joined the board of directors. Previously, Dickerson was CEO of eCredit, which was acquired by Fidelity Ventures in 2006. Landry is a highly regarded serial entrepreneur, who has served as a technology executive with leading firms including IBM, Lotus Development, Dun & Bradstreet, Cullinet Software and McCormack & Dodge.


"The addition of two such prominent executives to our team is a real endorsement of the market opportunity for Metatomix," said Wayne Boulais, Metatomix chairman and Apex Venture Partners general partner. "Having worked with Jeff in previous positions, I know that Metatomix will benefit from his intense focus on customers and their success. And John Landry's experience as a technologist is unparalleled. He's a tremendous addition to our team."

"Metatomix has established a successful track record of using semantic technology to solve real-world customer problems in key markets including integrated justice and financial services," said Dickerson. "I look forward to working with our existing customers to expand on that success, and to widening our focus to bring the same success to customers in markets such as healthcare, life sciences and others."

"From the moment I began analyzing it, Metatomix's semantic services technology has impressed me as being both technically solid and practically applicable," said Landry. "I look forward to working with the company to actualize the enormous potential for this solution across a wide range of markets and industries."

"Jeff and John bring great technology, sales and management experience to the Metatomix team," said Shamez Kanji, Metatomix board member and general partner, North Hill Ventures. "With these appointments, I'm confident that the leadership team can help accelerate the company's growth."

Dickerson brings to Metatomix more than 20 years of executive experience at various technology companies. In addition to his experience as CEO of eCredit, a provider of credit risk management and collections software, Dickerson was previously the senior vice president of worldwide sales and services at MCK Communications, where he expanded revenue from $2 million in 1997 to $50 million in 2001, setting the foundation for a successful public offering in 1999. He was also vice president of client/server sales at Vmark Software. Dickerson also held management positions at Prime Computer and Parametric Technologies.

With 25 years of experience building software and software companies, Landry manages Lead Dog Ventures, a disruptive new-age business accelerator, providing emerging technology enterprises access to a well-developed network of intellectual, relationship and financial capital. Landry currently serves as Chairman and CTO of one of Lead Dog's largest investments, Adesso Systems, where he led the design and development of Adesso's revolutionary distributed applications platform. Additionally, Landry has served as chairman of various companies including Agility Systems, Narrative Communications, Anyday.com and Adjoin Solutions.
For additional information or to arrange an interview with either Jeff Dickerson or John Landry, please contact Tim Perkins (tperkins@metatomix.com, 781-907-6722) or Meghan Doherty at CHEN PR (mdoherty@chenpr.com, 781-672-3147).

About Metatomix, Inc.

Founded in 2000, Metatomix (www.metatomix.com) is the leading provider of semantic customer data integration (CDI) solutions to law enforcement, courts, financial services and other customers. Metatomix solutions intelligently link customer data from existing disparate systems to create a common semantic understanding of customers across the enterprise. Using this contextual understanding, Metatomix solutions enable real-time analysis and insights, orchestrating coordinated responses amongst existing systems to optimized customer response and relationships. For more information, visit the Metatomix Web site at http://www.metatomix.com.

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3.15.2007
Forefield Expands Newsletter Service

MARLBORO, Mass., March 15, 2007 - Forefield Inc. announces the expansion of its newsletter service.

Forefield's industry leading newsletter solution for financial advisors has been enhanced to offer additional content selections, more powerful formatting options, and broader e-mail distribution reach. The number of available articles for inclusion in each newsletter issue has been increased, providing financial advisors with greater choice when they create their custom newsletters and allowing them to better tailor their newsletters to their practice. New formatting controls permit greater ease in creating custom articles and introductory notes and streamlining the workflow of custom newsletter creation. The blast e-mail capability has also been expanded, allowing advisors to have greater reach for their prospecting efforts. All enhancements have been added in to the existing service at no additional cost, thereby increasing the overall value Forefield delivers to its newsletter customers.

Forefield's five-article, four-page, NASD-reviewed newsletter service features articles addressing important market events and current industry trends. In addition to choosing from scores of different designs, advisors may personalize the newsletter with their contact information, picture, logo, disclaimer, masthead, and even an introductory note. The newsletters are then immediately available for electronic delivery to clients and prospects through e-mail, or hard copies can be bulk mailed to the advisor or mailed directly to clients. Financial institutions can lock down branding, design, and compliance features of the newsletters in order to offer their financial advisors a fully integrated and turnkey system.

"We had triple digit growth in our newsletter business in 2006. Our subscribers appreciate that the newsletter service helps them prospect for new clients while providing a high level of service to existing clients," said Brent Delehey, President and Chief Executive Officer at Forefield. "Our latest release provides our clients with even greater flexibility and reach, at no additional cost, and together with our other solutions, provides a strong platform for daily sales and marketing activities."

Advisors wishing to learn more about Forefield newsletters or any of Forefield's other products can sign up for a free trial at www.forefield.com.

About Forefield Inc.

Established in 1997, Forefield is the foremost provider of real-time sales, education, and client communication solutions for financial institutions and their advisors. Forefield's Web-based solutions facilitate the communication of client-centric financial planning knowledge and advice that is current, concise, and compliant. For more information, visit www.forefield.com.

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3.11.2007
Global Carriers Get Serious About Customer Portals

PARIS, FRANCE - March 11, 2007 - Enterprise customers want better control of their sprawling fixed and mobile voice/data networks - and they want the carriers to get the problem sorted. Service providers have answered the call with managed IP services, and Current Analysis provides a wide-ranging, in-depth Solutions Assessment of the leading global carriers' Managed IP Services capabilities. This latest analytic component focuses on the carriers' ability to provide customers with near-real-time management capabilities, by integrating their OSS/BSS capabilities to support user-friendly front-end customer portals.

The Current Analysis' mapping of the five global operators' progress highlights major differences in how they approach the task. The following table is a subset of the data points available in the full Current Analysis report:

Carrier: AT&T Current Analysis Perspective: Very Threatening Platform Name: BusinessDirect & IGEMS Availability: 88 countries Comments: AT&T has spent over $250 million on developing its BusinessDirect portal and iGEMS back-end engine over the past ten years. Its wide range of functions and the ability to adapt to the customer's managed IP services profile and the existing preferred network management platform, puts it at the head of the league table.

Carrier: Verizon Business Current Analysis Perspective: Threatening Platform Name: VBCC & IMPACT Availability: 142 countries Comments: The hottest challenge comes from the new Verizon Business Customer Center delivering deep monitoring and management solution to its customers across the range of Verizon Business IP services as well as rapid fault analysis and repair capabilities based on inputs from some 50 support tools.

Carrier: Orange Business Services Current Analysis Perspective: Threatening Platform Name: WebVision Availability: 220 countries Comments: Orange Business Services provides the widest global footprint for its portal, as well as the most advanced end-to-end application based SLA service. Going forward OBS must develop a lighter end-to-end application monitoring solution at a lower price point without the need for a large professional services staff.

Carrier: BT Global Services Current Analysis Perspective: Competitive Platform Name: VBC & AAI Management Centre Availability: 95 countries Comments: The BT Global Services Virtual Business Centre (VBC) offering covers the whole range of BT IP services and can be tailored to individual customer requirements, but remains a fragmented offering despite the new My Account thin portal. Customers are provided with a wide range of choices, but no clear assurance that what they chose optimally fulfills their needs.

Carrier: T-Systems Current Analysis Perspective: Vulnerable Platform Name: FlexSolutions & point solutions Availability: 50+ countries Comments: The T-Systems FlexSolutions portal provides a limited range of capabilities, lacking interactivity. It measures network parameters to improve the transparency of contract SLAs, but the monitor-only approach of FlexSolutions requires customers to utilize other ways of managing their overall corporate networks.

Additional findings include the following:
- The carrier services supported are consistently VPN, VoIP and DIA (Dedicated Intern Access) whereas Ethernet and managed Contact Centers are not on yet. Connections to security services are also widespread mostly through links to a separate security platform or via a second set of log-on procedures. Some carriers also provide a medium level of secure access for MAC (Moves, Adds & Change) functions.
- Applications performance and user controlled MAC tasks along with historical data, billing and ordering functions are also widespread, whereas integration with 3rd party applications is still limited, but becoming increasing important as carriers transition their major business customers' networks to their IP infrastructures.

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3.5.2007
Compete Achieves Record Growth in 2006

BOSTON - March 5, 2007

Compete, Inc. today announced the company achieved record growth in 2006. The company's substantial growth was fueled by its position as the only online consumer market research firm delivering value to both marketers and consumers.

Compete's revenues have grown tenfold since 2002, as its automotive, financial services, travel and wireless practices experienced major growth. In 2006, Compete was presented with a coveted Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Award in recognition of its significant growth accomplishments and position as the third fastest growing company in New England.

With its launch of Compete.com in 2006, Compete has further established itself as the online market research firm at the nexus of consumer and marketer interaction. Compete.com is the first website to offer free premium web metrics to marketers and web savvy consumers. The site has proven to be a popular and valuable resource for online marketers with more than 250,000 people visiting the site and more than 750,000 site snapshots so far.

Compete.com Announcement: http://www.competeinc.com/news_events/pressReleases/171/

"Marketers are struggling to catch up with consumers online," said Don McLagan, chairman, president and CEO of Compete. "Consumers now spend nine hours per month on MySpace alone, leaving less time for interaction with brands through traditional media channels. As marketers move a greater share of marketing dollars online we are helping them research, channel and engage consumers in new ways."

Social Marketing Thought Leaders:
Throughout 2006, Compete senior executives were sought after thought leaders, on the speaking circuit and by the media, on the topics of social marketing and consumer generated media. Compete's Chief Marketing Officer, Stephen DiMarco, led discussions at leading marketing and advertising conferences across the country and Compete's influential Spark! research reports were frequently featured in leading business and marketing publications.

Download research: http://www.competeinc.com/research/spark/

Industry Recognition:
In addition to being named third fastest growing company in Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 Program for New England, Compete.com's blog received the coveted MITX award for Best Community/Blog in 2006. The blog, which provides timely, clever commentary about news and trends was also added to the prestigious 9rules community of blogs. With 500 blogs referenced or linked to the Compete.com blog, it has been catapulted into the top 5,000 blogs according to Technorati.

Best Community/Blog Announcement: http://www.competeinc.com/news_events/pressReleases/173/

Compete was also named as finalist in 2006 American Business Awards and Compete's Voicebox platform was a finalist in the 2006 MITX Technology Awards.

Marketers Turn to Compete:
Compete works with more than 50 world-class brands including major U.S. wireless carriers, handset OEMs, financial institutions, more than 70% of automotive OEMs, search engines and leading online travel agencies. To meet the expanding needs of its customers, Compete grew its staff to 78 employees in 2006.

About Compete

Compete, Inc. is the only online market research firm that creates value for both consumers and marketers. Compete's research is powered by millions of people who share their online behavior to create a more trusted, transparent, and valuable Internet. Consumers use Compete to stay safe when they surf, save when they buy, and discover the best new websites. Leading companies turn to Compete to understand how these consumers consider, buy and engage with their own and rival brands. Carlson Hotels Worldwide, Hyundai Motor America, Upromise, Verizon Wireless, DaimlerChrysler and other innovative companies rely on Compete's real-time insights to improve the return on their marketing investments.

Compete is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, with offices throughout the US. For more information, please visit http://www.competeinc.com.

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