Actuate establishes leadership in client/server reporting market with strategic partners; Leading client/server database and tool vendors, consultants, VARs and systems integrators endorse the Actuate Reporting System.

Software Corp. today announced that several leading client/server software companies and consulting organizations, including Informix, Forte, Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP) and Clarify, have joined the Actuate Partners Program and will be reselling the Actuate Reporting System.

Each partner is making the Actuate Reporting System a key part of their current product and service offerings while several partners are standardizing on Actuate as their sole reporting solution.

"Partners have been quick to adopt Actuate, the industry's first reporting system architected for client/server," said Pete Cittadini, executive vice president of Actuate. "Actuate clearly fills a void in the reporting market for tools that give users the power to effectively utilize corporate information on their desktops while scaling easily from small to large configurations."

Cittadini continued, "The growing acceptance of the Actuate paradigm and the remarkable response we've received from the market indicates a major shift in the reporting industry towards tools that better leverage resources in a distributed environment. Actuate is well on its way to becoming the new standard for client/server reporting."

Actuate's Aggressive Channel Strategy

Actuate's goal is to be the new leader in client/server reporting. As a result, it has adopted an aggressive channel strategy that includes the following: -0-

    -- Direct Sales to Major Accounts
          - Actuate's sales force addresses enterprise-level
             client/server reporting needs;
          - Initial customers: Kaiser Permanente, Chase Manhattan
             Bank and Fidelity Investments
    -- Consulting and Training Partners
          - Certified Actuate partners offer training and
             implementation services for the Actuate Reporting
             System;
          - Initial partners: Cambridge Technology Partners (CTP),
             NetBase Computing, Benchmark Technical Services and
             TIER Corp.
    -- VARs
          - Actuate VARs embed Actuate as the reporting solution for
             their applications;
          - Initial VARs include; Clarify, BBN Domain and EDS
             Unigraphics.
    -- Actuate Partners and Resellers
          - Tool vendors, systems integrators and major consulting
             firms noted above will resell or recommend Actuate to
             companies with client/server reporting requirements;
          - Initial partners include: Informix, Forte, Unify and
             USoft.-0-

Actuate's marketing programs include certification and support for channel partners, an Actuate seminar series which begins in early 1996 and participation in select trade shows and events.

Informix, Forte & USoft Endorse Actuate's Architecture

Reporting is an absolute necessity for Informix customers and a critical aspect of most business applications. Informix, the world's third largest relational database vendor, recommends the market's most advanced reporting system, Actuate, for use in conjunction with NewEra applications.

"Actuate's object-oriented environment and distributed architecture are meeting information requirements that no other reporting technology is currently meeting," said Mike Saranga, senior vice president, product management and development at Informix. "Finally, a reporting product has entered the market that complements the Informix NewEra development environment and provides users with an unprecedented level of reporting flexibility and power."

According to Martin Sprinzen, president and CEO of Forte, the company that pioneered the three-tier application development environment, "Actuate has an innovative approach to reporting that uses a three-tiered, distributed object architecture. It offers many of the same benefits as Forte's architecture for building high-end, client/server applications -- performance, flexibility and ease of reuse. This is the architecture that will be required from all client/server solutions that look to solve enterprise-wide problems."

USoft, a provider of open systems software products that support the development and deployment of enterprise-wide, business critical computing applications, will be reselling the Actuate Reporting System.

"USoft addresses applications characterized by complexity, scalability, interoperability and automatic coordination of the three-tier computing architecture," said Mike Seashols, president of USoft. "These `server/client' applications require a highly scalable production report writer that supports a full range of reporting requirements including high volume data manipulation and object-oriented reusability. Actuate sets the standard for the next generation of report writers, providing end-user to production level reporting capabilities."

Unify Corporation, a supplier of high-end application development tools, is also an Actuate partner.

Leading Consulting Firms Speed Client/Server Reporting

CTP is a leading systems integration and consulting organization that is recognized for consistently implementing business-critical applications in record time (six-to-nine months). CTP has chosen Actuate for the reporting component of its new SpeedWorks architecture. SpeedWorks is an easy-to-use, pre-integrated set of market-leading software technology that facilitates the rapid development of high-quality applications for CTP's Fortune 500 clients.

"Actuate allows us to speed up development and deployment of reporting portions of solutions for our customers by a considerable amount," said Burt Rubenstein, vice president of technology at CTP. "Additionally, Actuate lets us deliver reporting for new applications such as mobile computing that other products haven't yet addressed. We see several projects immediately which could benefit from their technology. Actuate is more than a year ahead of its competition and is setting the reporting standards that other vendors will try to follow."

NetBase Computing is a consulting firm that specializes in developing custom client/server applications for customers such as TRW, Southern California Edison and American Honda. NetBase has found that reporting is a fundamental requirement of all business-critical applications and accounts for at least 50 percent of maintenance time and resources once an application is deployed.

"Actuate brings object-oriented reuse and a client/server architecture to the reporting market which allows developers to create report components that end users can assemble and customize," said Ujj Nath, president of NetBase Computing. "Additionally, it streamlines performing daily reporting functions for the user by delivering a new level of speed, performance and interactive reporting capabilities previously unheard of in the industry. This translates into increased company profits, corporate efficiency and decision-making power. We believe that Actuate will become the corporate reporting standard for 1990's."

Joining CTP and NetBase Computing as initial Actuate systems integrators, consultants and official training centers are TIER Corp. and Benchmark Technical Services.

VARs Deliver Intelligent Reporting to Customers

EDS Unigraphics is integrating the Actuate Reporting System with its product data management system, Information Manager (IMAN), providing extensive reporting capabilities to support requirements of enterprise implementations. The company is partnering with Actuate to do its object-oriented reporting technology which complements its architecture.

"By integrating Actuate we are providing our customers extensive reporting capabilities and flexibility," said John Pavetto, PIM business unit manager at EDS Unigraphics. "Actuate makes corporate information more accessible and useful to the corporation. It does this through intelligent reporting. Intelligent reporting provides easy access to real-time data in a unique, interactive way. For the first time, executives can customize their own reports, browse, search and transfer data, link to other reports and systems, and re-slice the data without going to their IS department to request that a new report be developed."

Clarify is a leading provider of adaptable client/server application software designed to address the external and internal service, support and product quality needs of today's global enterprises.

"Customer support provides a competitive advantage for businesses in the `90's," said Dave Stamm, president, founder and CEO of Clarify. "As such, it's critical that our customer support management solutions provide reporting capabilities that enable users to analyze and act on their data quickly and efficiently. We've partnered with Actuate because they have a unique and advanced approach to client/server report generation which lets users not only include data from multiple sources in a single report, but also interact with virtually every element of that report. That makes finding and acting on data easier and faster for our customers."

BBN Domain, as well as Clarify and EDS Unigraphics, are embedding the Actuate Reporting System as the reporting solution for their applications.

Actuate Software Corp.

Founded in 1993 and headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., Actuate Software Corp. is a private company that has equity financing from investors Accel Partners and Mohr, Davidow Ventures. Actuate has created the first reporting system architected for client/server. The company reaches its customers through a multi-channel sales, distribution and support strategy that includes large, strategic sales to Fortune 1000 corporations as well as Actuate-certified VARs and consultants worldwide. -0-

Note to Editors: Actuate is a trademark of Actuate Software Corp. All other trademarks are held by their respective owners.

CONTACT: Actuate Software Corp.

Pete Cittadini, 415/638-2012

or

Samluk Communications, Inc.

Mary Camarata, 510/736-8166