AICPA SysTrust Standards Selected by Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions for ASPs Offering Its Products; Compliance With SysTrust Standards Assures Systems Reliability of ASPs.

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 2, 2001

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) announced today that Microsoft Great Plains has selected the SysTrust Program as one of the systems reliability standards to which its Application Software Provider (ASP) partners must adhere.

ASPs wishing to offer Microsoft Great Plains products must first have their systems independently tested for reliability.

"As the outsourcing trend continues and more companies turn to Application Service Providers, we want those customers of Microsoft Great Plains Business Solutions -- our customers -- to feel comfortable knowing that the organizations hosting their applications are reliable and secure," said Daryl Anderson, CPA, Senior Technical Consultant of Microsoft Great Plains. "SysTrust provides the added assurance that controls are in place at the ASP to protect the system's availability, security, integrity and maintainability. Microsoft Great Plains wants to insure confidence to our partners and customers by requiring our ASP partners demonstrate their systems have been independently reviewed against an industry standard like SysTrust."

Through SysTrust, Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) independently examine a system to provide reasonable assurance that the system is capable of operating without material error, fault or failure during a specified period in a specified environment. A CPA firm's independent SysTrust opinion is designed to increase the comfort of management, customers and business partners with the systems that support a business or a particular activity. The SysTrust standards used to evaluate whether a system is reliable cover the following areas:

-- Availability: The system is available for operation and use at

times set forth in service-level statements or agreements.

-- Security: The system is protected against unauthorized physical and logical
access.

-- Integrity: System processing is complete, accurate, timely and authorized.

-- Maintainability: When necessary, the system can be updated in a way that
does not interfere or conflict with its availability, security and integrity.

"SysTrust helps minimize risk to business partners and users of a particular system by assuring them that the system is reliable -- that it is capable of operating without material errors or failures during a particular timeframe in a specified environment," said Anthony Pugliese, Vice President of Member Innovation of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. "Users of Microsoft Great Plains products through an ASP interface have the same concerns about the ASP system -- they want to know that the system is secure, reliable and available as promised. Their livelihoods depend upon information systems and the data contained in them. SysTrust responds to the critical need for assurance on the reliability of systems and positions CPAs as future providers of real-time assurance on informational databases and systems."

About the AICPA

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is the ISO 9001 certified national professional organization of CPAs in the United States with more than 340,000 members in public practice, business and industry, government, and education. For more information about SysTrust, please visit http://www.aicpa.org/assurance/systrust.htm.