FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Solver DLL Components Support New Microsoft Visual Tools
Spreadsheet Solver "Engines" Make Optimization Easy to Use in Custom Applications

INCLINE VILLAGE, NV – March 19, 1997 – Frontline Systems Inc., developer of the Solver in all three popular spreadsheets, is shipping a major new release, Version 2.0 of its Solver DLL (Dynamic Link Library) products, with support for applications written in Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0, Visual C++ 5.0 and Fortran PowerStation, as well as Pascal programs written with Borland Delphi 2.0.

The Solver DLL products bring to user-written applications the optimization "engines" which form the core of the Microsoft Excel Solver, the Quattro Pro Optimizer, and the Lotus 1-2-3 97 Solver, all of which were developed by Frontline Systems. Applications can use the Solver DLLs to automatically find the best way to allocate scarce resources – such as money, raw materials, equipment or people time – to maximize profits or minimize costs while operating within specified limits, called constraints, on their use.

Compatible DLL Versions for Small-Scale and Large-Scale Problems

Frontline's Solver DLL product line includes three compatible Solver DLLs. All three products include both 16-bit and 32-bit versions of the DLLs, for use with Windows 3.x, Windows 95 or Windows NT.

• The Small-Scale LP/MIP Solver DLL ($495) handles linear programming (LP) and mixed-integer programming (MIP) problems of up to 800 decision variables – four times the capacity of the standard spreadsheet Solvers.
• The Small-Scale LP/QP/MIP Solver DLL ($695) adds a quadratic programming (QP) capability to the Small-Scale LP/MIP Solver product. Quadratic programming is often used in investment portfolio optimization, where the Solver finds an "efficient portfolio" of securities with the best risk/reward.
• The Large-Scale LP/MIP Solver DLL ($1,495), designed for large-scale industrial problems, uses sophisticated sparse-matrix storage and matrix factorization techniques to handle LP and MIP problems with as many as 16,000 decision variables and constraints.

Frontline offers an aggressive discount schedule for runtime licensing of the Solver DLLs, making it very economical to include the DLLs in applications distributed to users within an organization or commercially.

New Features Simplify Application Development

In contrast to Frontline's spreadsheet solvers, where the optimization problem is laid out on a spreadsheet, applications using the Solver DLLs define the problem via arguments passed to DLL routines. A number of new features make it easier to define such problems and verify that the correct arguments are being used. Fewer arguments are needed for simple, standard problems; argument checking is much more extensive; and diagnostic messages help users catch errors without writing any code. Users can verify their problem definition by calling a new DLL routine which writes out the problem in algebraic form to a text file.

An OLE type library, included with the Solver DLL products, makes it easier to call the DLL routines and pass the right argument values, when working in languages which can browse type libraries. Also included is a Visual Basic module, a Delphi Pascal unit, Fortran INTERFACE declarations, and a C/C++ header file with the same definitions as the type library.

Other new features allow the application developer to control many more algorithmic parameters, such as solution time and iteration limits, and tolerances used in the linear programming and integer programming algorithms – all accessible through a unified set of DLL routines.

Free Solver DLL Evaluation Kit Available on the Web

Frontline has made available a free Evaluation Kit for the Solver DLLs on its World Wide Web site, http://www.frontsys.com. The Kit includes a fully-functional version of the Small-Scale LP/QP/MIP Solver DLL, limited to 10 decision variables; the full text of Frontline's Solver DLL User Guide in Help file format; and complete source code of example programs in Visual Basic, C/C++, Fortran and Delphi Pascal with step-by-step build instructions. Users may also browse the Solver DLL User Guide in HTML format on the Web site, and ask questions online in Frontline's Private Web for Solver Users, which also covers the standard and enhanced spreadsheet Solvers.

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Last modified: July 11, 2000