In addition to offering more efficient and detailed reporting capabilities to help meet FAS123R requirements, Express Options application v7.0's new security enhancements will assist clients with Sarbanes-Oxley compliance standards.

The Express Options application is part of Computershare's Express Equity Suite of products, which also includes Express Stock Purchase, Express Desktop and for their private company clients, Express Share Tracking.

"Similar to other rollouts, this major upgrade comes at no-cost for current customers," said Patricia Brown, Senior Product Manager for Computershare Plans Software. "We have launched an aggressive 2007 and 2008 product enhancement schedule for the applications and we are excited introduce new and updated features that are in line with the needs of the marketplace and our clients' feedback."

The Express Option application will now support Windows Authentication for MSDE and MSQL users. For clients utilizing Oracle, v7.0 will support the processing of error codes as defined by the client's database administrator. In addition to the security enhancements, there are upgrades to nearly all financial reporting features.

Additional data segregation elements as well as sorting and filtering capabilities will allow significantly improved flexibility, especially for those companies that have changed expense amortization methods post-123R. As for proxy reports, these have been updated to reflect the Securities and Exchange Commission's December 29, 2006 regulation changes. Within the Express Share Tracking module for private company clients, enhancements in the report selection for capitalization table and certificate areas have also been developed.