Active Software Introduces Application Transaction Coordinator to Ensure Transactional Integrity of End-to-End Business Processes.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2000

Inter-Application Transactional Messaging System Enables Customers to

Trust their Most Critical Data to eBusiness Integration

Active Software, Inc. (Nasdaq:ASWX), a leading provider of eBusiness infrastructure software products, today announced the ActiveWorks(TM) Application Transaction Coordinator (ATC) to ensure the transactional integrity of end-to end business processes.

A significant new component of the ActiveWorks Integration System, the ATC provides guaranteed application-to-application transactional reliability and monitoring regardless of what different transaction models are used by each application. Using Active Software's ATC, organizations can ensure that all business processes complete successfully, enabling customers to trust their most critical data to eBusiness integration. Active Software's ATC is already in use at multiple customer sites within the telecommunications, financial services and high technology industries where transaction integrity is a critical issue.

"As a leading provider of Internet-based procurement systems, we have to be able to process hundreds of thousands of transactions very quickly while simultaneously ensuring that all transactions complete successfully across multiple application systems," said Rusty Frantz, vice president, engineering, Outpurchase.com. "Active Software's ATC guarantees that no critical data is lost, enabling us to reduce our risk and increase the speed of our online procurement solutions."

The ActiveWorks Integration System from Active Software automates end-to-end business processes both within the enterprise and with customers and business-to-business (B2B) trading partners across the Internet. With the ATC, organizations will be able to guarantee that each integration process completes successfully, providing end-to-end reliability between packaged applications both inside and outside the firewall. The ATC complements the guaranteed messaging provided by the ActiveWorks Information Broker by bridging independent applications' transaction systems that operate in isolation of transactions that extend beyond an individual application.

"Transactions are fundamental to eBusiness; however, in today's network economy, transactions typically involve a variety of different systems all working independently of each other," said Zack Urlocker, vice president, marketing, Active Software. "Until now, organizations that needed to ensure overall business process integrity were required to develop tremendous amounts of custom code to guarantee that these different systems were working together. Using Active Software's ATC, customers can now ensure complete end-to-end transactional integrity. This enables them to reap the benefits of a complete eBusiness infrastructure that can handle the complex, mission-critical transactions that often span multiple systems with complete confidence."

ATC Product Capabilities

The ATC includes all the components necessary to guarantee transaction integrity across multiple applications. The principal components are:

--  Guaranteed Application-to-Application Transactional Integrity. The
    ATC can guarantee application-to-application transactional
    integrity when data cannot be lost and re-sending data is not an
    option.

--  Fast Problem Identification and Resolution. When a problem occurs,
    the ATC not only notifies that there is a problem, but it also
    provides tools to quickly report, suspend and resolve the problem
    transaction.

--  Cost-effective Implementation and Maintenance. The ATC optimizes
    information flow so that only relevant information changes are
    sent to the appropriate systems.

--  Business Process Performance Optimization. Since the ATC logs all
    notifications and business events to a database, customers can
    quickly determine how their organizations' eBusiness processes are
    operating and make appropriate business decisions about where to
    invest resources to improve automation.

Pricing and Availability

The ActiveWorks ATC is available now. Product pricing starts at $15,000 and will vary with the size and complexity of customer projects.

About Active Software, Inc.

Founded in 1995, Active Software, Inc, (Nasdaq:ASWX) is a leading provider of eBusiness infrastructure software products. Active Software's eBusiness platform, the ActiveWorks(TM) Integration System, automates end-to-end business processes both within the enterprise and with B2B trading partners and customers across the Internet. Active Software has approximately 200 customers in industries such as telecommunications, financial services, government, technology, utilities, distribution, manufacturing and transportation. Active Software is headquartered in Santa Clara, California. For more information, visit the company Web site at www.activesoftware.com.

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Potential risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, Active Software's limited operating history, potential fluctuations in operating results, the company's substantial dependence on its ActiveWorks software products, the company's need to expand its sales and distribution channels, and the uncertain market acceptance of eBusiness integration software products. These and other risk factors are described in detail in the Company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1999, and in its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Note to Editors: The Active Software logo, Active Software, and ActiveWorks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Active Software, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.