Allen Systems Group Acquires Cutting-edge Graphical Analysis Tool.

NEW ORLEANS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 27, 1998--Allen Systems Group (ASG) today announced at CA-WORLD the release and availability of ASG-VISTA(tm). The product was acquired through the purchase of DK2 from IMPACT Software Technologies (IMPACT ST), a software development firm based in Mulhouse, France.

Allen Systems Group is pleased to unveil the robust, next-generation DK2 technology in ASG-VISTA. Allen Systems Group began selling the program immediately from its Paris office following the February acquisition. The product is already contributing to the success of more than 40 large corporations in France, Belgium, and Switzerland.

ASG-VISTA is a graphical analysis tool that gives businesses a comprehensive view of their information infrastructure. It analyzes software, hardware, and network components -- including operating systems and application programs -- then stores that analysis in a data library. Users open the library to see each component as a graphical object, along with its relationship to the entire system. The program runs under the popular Windows 95 and NT client/server architecture.

"ASG-VISTA looks at both hardware and software, then presents it in a graphical format to the user. Users can see broad, high-level overviews, then browse right down to code- and field-level views," explained Art Allen, President and CEO of ASG. "With ASG-VISTA, we can now offer our customers the ability to visualize their computing environments in a way never before possible."

ASG-VISTA will benefit businesses by increasing productivity and improving decision support. It provides immediate, up-to-date, unified views of an information system, and eliminates manually correlating data from a diverse set of sources. Costly development and implementation errors can be avoided by evaluating the validity and consequences of potential system modifications. ASG-VISTA provides a powerful and easy-to-use analytical tool for information system operations, application development and maintenance, and quality assurance.

"The views are displayed as easy-to-understand flow charts that show all the relationships between programs," Mr. Allen said. "Information managers can investigate exactly what a program is doing, see which programs are contingent upon other programs, and immediately determine the effect of any change to the system."

ASG-VISTA improves information system knowledge and management by collecting information that describes systems assets, relationships between systems, access types (read, write) for files and databases accessed from a job, and incremental updates of system assets and relationships.

"ASG-VISTA's data library provides an enterprise view of complex computing environments," said Jim Carlton, ASG's Vice President of Product Support. "Macro and micro views permit management of continuous change, including Year 2000 (Y2K) issues, single European currency, and the Internet. ASG will integrate cross-platform technology with ASG-VISTA to provide an unparalleled solution for the specific requirements of information systems."

In addition to analyzing a wide array of computing environments, ASG-VISTA can identify multiple computer languages and display system scheduling operations, as well as recognize data created in numerous programs. ASG-VISTA supports MVS, VSE, VMS, CICS, UNIX, and many other environments; languages such as JCL, COBOL, Assembler, and others; and data such as DB2, DL1, Control-M, and Oracle.

About Allen Systems Group (ASG)

Founded in 1986 by Mr. Arthur Allen, ASG has become a recognized leader in the computer software industry. The company offers data center automation tools, job control management tools, CA-IDMS(r) utilities, consolidated service desk software, cross-platform file transfer utilities, and data entry systems. The company serves more than 2,200 clients in a wide variety of industries around the world.

Allen Systems Group is based in Naples, Florida with international offices in Paris, France and Sydney, Australia and distribution channels in Asia, Israel, Mexico, Central America, South America, and the USA.

For more information, call ASG at [phone], fax [phone], e-mail to [e-mail] or visit ASG's web site at http://www.asgvista.allensysgroup.com.

All products mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

CONTACT: Press Contact:

Phillip Wilkerson, Vice President

Marketing & Technical Communications

Allen Systems Group, Inc.

800-932-5536, [e-mail]

www.asgvista.allensysgroup.com