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Contact: Daniel Fylstra |
News Release |
INCLINE VILLAGE, NV - February 15, 2003 - Frontline Systems, Inc., developer of the Solver in all three major spreadsheets, is pleased to announce Version 5.5 of the XPRESS Solver Engine, its fastest and largest capacity Solver for linear and quadratic mixed-integer problems. The XPRESS Solver Engine, based on the industry-leading XpressMP Optimizer from Dash Optimization, is a field-installable Solver Engine that "plugs into" the Premium Solver Platform, Frontline's 'flagship' spreadsheet optimization product for Microsoft Excel. It solves problems with up to 200,000 variables and 200,000 constraints.
"We continue to provide Excel users with the fastest mixed-integer Solver performance available," said Daniel H. Fylstra, President of Frontline Systems. "Version 5.5 of the XPRESS Solver Engine is twice as fast as Version 5.0, which we introduced less than six months ago."
XPRESS Solver Extends Its World-Class Mixed-Integer Performance
The XPRESS Solver Engine Version 5.5 incorporates a wide range of improvements in LP and mixed-integer methods, including new branching techniques which result in substantially fewer nodes in the tree search, and new primal heuristics designed to find an integer incumbent earlier in the search. The LP presolve is enhanced with a linear dependency checker, the dual Simplex has improved stability on poorly scaled models, and the Barrier algorithm performance has also been improved.
Flexible Licensing Permits 'Dual Use' in both Excel and Custom Programs
Thanks to both policy and technical changes, it is now possible to extend the user license of the underlying XpressMP Optimizer that is delivered with the XPRESS Solver Engine V5.5 to permit calls by user-written programs written in C/C++, Visual Basic and similar programming languages. The user need only purchase a license to an add-on component, the DLL Library for XPRESS Solver Engine.
Pricing, Upgrades, Academic Versions, and Free Evaluations
The XPRESS Solver Engine V5.5 is available with the primal and dual Simplex Solvers for $5,995 ($1,800 academic), and with both Simplex and Newton Barrier Solvers for $7,695 ($2,310 academic). The DLL Library for the XPRESS Solver Engine is priced at $1,800 ($540 academic). Annual Support Contracts range in price from $1,200 to $1,540; they provide access to technical support as well as upgrades to future versions for one year. Existing users of the XPRESS Solver Engine V5.0 with current Annual Support Contracts will receive free upgrades to Version 5.5. Users of other Frontline Systems Solver Engines who have current Annual Support Contracts can "trade up" to the XPRESS Solver Engine V5.5, in most cases for the difference in license price.
Prospective users can download fully functional, full capacity and speed, free trial versions of the Premium Solver Platform V5.0 and the XPRESS Solver Engine V5.5 from Frontline's Website at https://www.solver.com. For further information, contact Frontline Systems at info@solver.com or at 888-831-0333 (U.S. toll free) or 775-831-0300 (international).