Altris Announces the Intelligent Document; Enterprise Document Management through Altris EB Compatible with Microsoft and a Variety of Other Platforms.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 4, 1997--Altris Software, Inc. (NASDAQ/NM:ALTS) today announced Altris EB, its next generation of document management software.

This new product family is built from the bottom up on the concept of the Intelligent Document. This concept is bound to revolutionize the EDM market, allowing users to be recipients of information rather than requestors.

"Until now, document management systems have been designed on the basis of pulling information from server computers to desktops," stated Jay Tanna, President and CEO of Altris Software.

"In a world where users are overwhelmed by information, it should be a refreshing change to have the information appear on the User desktop without that user having to request it. The whole process is self learning and additive. That is, the more a user interacts with the system, the more it is going to know the requirements of that user and deliver the information needed."

Altris EB is founded on the idea that documents represent a valuable corporate asset -- its memory. While document management systems must at a basic level provide access to specific, requested information, the true power of document management lies in the ability to leverage the corporate memory and impose business logic for heightened productivity and improved decision making.

Key to Altris EB is the ability to lend intelligence to documents. Once in the system, a document knows who is interested in it, what processes it must participate in, and when its useful life is over. Interested users are notified by the document when comments or changes occur, and when it is accessed by others, linked to other documents or referenced.

New Approach Gains Industry Recognition

Altris EB enables users to focus on process, letting the information gather itself. This approach reduces training time, provides fast access to the corporate memory and is extremely flexible. Users can work from multiple locations, including remote sites, can access information from their desktop productivity tools, business applications or personalized views and have access to a variety of tools to interact with documents, apply business logic and add value.

"Altris is taking a unique approach to compound document management," commented Carl Frappaolo, Executive Vice President of Delphi Consulting Group. "Always a strong technology leader, the company has a vision that captures the essence of personalized document management at an enterprise level. They are providing the foundation to a new era in document management in which the document becomes an active participant in the enterprise, acting as the author, keeper and purveyor of corporate knowledge."

The company previewed the product last week at its semi-annual Corporate Advisory Board meeting. The product will be beta tested by several customers over the next few months. According to Andrew Webb, Consultant to London Underground, Ltd., the product is "everything we need." Other companies represented at the Board meeting included British Petroleum, Abbey National Bank, Entergy, Inc., and Northeast Utilities.

"We believe that harnessing and managing corporate knowledge have become critical requirements for Global 2000 companies and represents the next challenge for the compound document management community," stated David Yockelson, Vice President of Meta Group. "Altris EB represents a strong step towards enabling users to extract pertinent information easily from previously static, passive documents."

Importance of Microsoft Compatibility

Microsoft products play a big role in Altris EB. The product supports Microsoft Front Office desktop productivity tools (e.g., Microsoft Word, Windows 95, Windows NT Workstation) and BackOffice tools such as Microsoft NT Server, SMS, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Internet Information Server. According to Rich Noffsinger, Industry Marketing Manger for Document Management at Microsoft, "Altris is clearly a leader in its marketplace. Microsoft is pleased to have a partnership with the company and sees its products as strategic to the industry." Altris will be demonstrating the product in the Microsoft Pavillon at AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) in mid-April.

"Full compatibility with Microsoft is a critical component of our Altris EB roll-out strategy," stated Jay Tanna, President and CEO of Altris Software. "We find as we identify DMS candidates within our target industries, we are at a distinct advantage by offering Microsoft compatible products, in addition to our open system configurations. Microsoft is making significant progress in penetrating the enterprise system marketplace, and Altris is well positioned to offer document management solutions in the Microsoft environment."

"We have selected Microsoft products for our core desktop and server infrastructure," stated Bob Neyer, Document Systems Manager at a Southeastern municipal utility. "One of the important factors in selecting Altris for our enterprise document management system was their compatibility with the Microsoft suite of products."

About Altris EB

Altris EB is a complete enterprise document management system, built on a multi-tier architecture, supporting common databases, networks, file types and desktop platforms. The product offers rich functionality for end users in office and engineering environments. Altris EB extends the current Altris product set, simplifying setup, lowering startup costs and harnessing the power of the document warehouse.

Through Altris EB, the authorized user can obtain on demand or through push publishing, all information of interest. Multiple levels of functionality are provided to the desktop, ensuring the lowest training costs and creating a personal environment. Both thin and thick clients are supported, allowing the implementing customer to choose the appropriate deployment strategy.

Altris EB offers tight coupling with structured data, enabling a complete view of corporate knowledge. Technologies such as PDM (product data), COLD (report data) and Data Warehousing (data set aside for mining) are all supported, as well as integration with in-place database applications for human resources, accounts payable, maintenance and other functions.

New features in the product include DocuMining, Profiling Services and a full featured Intranet/Extranet capability. Altris EB continues the tradition of Altris providing complete solutions for its customers. This one-stop shop approach, also taken by its partner Data General, is key to fast delivery, implementation and support of the system. According to Bill Zastrow, Vice President at Data General, "People are tired of being their own system integrators. We chose Altris as a partner because of its unique technologies and the ability to have a single point of support. We believe that Altris EB will be nothing but good news to our customers."

Altris EB will be available starting in the second half of the year, following beta test. Pricing for the product will start under $1000 per user for software systems with more than 100 concurrent users. The product family supports Microsoft BackOffice products as well as UNIX servers and other Internet servers, plus UNIX workstation and Macintosh access.

Altris Software is a leader in delivering enterprise-wide document management software to thousands of customer installations around the world that include hundreds of thousands of users and tens of millions of documents. Across industries and applications, the San Diego-based company provides its customers with quality document management software systems that increase productivity and profitability. From manufacturing and utilities to banking and government, Altris systems integrate with existing computer resources, ensuring that data of every size and shape is handled rapidly and cost-effectively over global networks.

CONTACT: Altris Software

Jay Tanna/John W. Low, 619/625-3000

or

Lippert/Heilshorn & Associates Inc.

Lillian B. Armstrong/Adam M. Aron, 415/433-3777