Anglian Water, ScottishPower and Bass Taverns Select Forte for Mission-Critical Client/Server Development; Adoption of Forte in United Kingdom Increases.

OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 15, 1996--Forte Software (NASDAQ: FRTE) today announced that three well-known United Kingdom (U.K.)-based companies, Anglian Water, ScottishPower and Bass Taverns, have chosen the Forte Application Environment for enterprise application development.

Forte is an integrated set of object-oriented tools for building, deploying and managing high-end client/server applications.

Forte will be the primary development platform in Anglian Water's re-development project. Anglian Water is the largest regional water company in the U.K. This overall system integration contract, worth 80 million pounds (approximately $124 million based on the value of the British pound as of August 13, 1996), is being managed and implemented by Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), the world's largest independent systems and service provider.

ScottishPower, one of the U.K.'s lowest cost electricity distribution and supply providers, will introduce a new Forte-based information system in a move to further improve the cost management of labor, repair work and assets, while increasing customer service.

Bass Taverns, the pub retailing division of Bass plc, has chosen Forte as the development platform for the company's new enterprise-wide Staff Scheduling System. The initial software and services contract will provide a Forte-based application in each of Bass Taverns' 2,800 pubs throughout the U.K. Forte Partner ECsoft Synapse will be providing the system integration. ECsoft Synapse is part of the ECsoft Group, a pan-European company that provides Information Technology (IT) services, methods and tools.

"We continue to see growth in worldwide demand for high-end client/server systems," said Marty Sprinzen, president and CEO of Forte Software. "We are pleased to be further expanding our global customer base with these leading companies, who are using client/server technology to solve important business problems."

Anglian Water

Over the next five years, all of Anglian's applications, from water production to customer billing, will be re-developed and migrated from proprietary hardware onto a distributed, client/server infrastructure. Both Forte and Forte Express, a visual application generator, will be used to develop applications based on a central object model.

"We quickly recognized the importance of making the move from a legacy system to client/server a smooth one, as well as transparent to end users," said Peter Wells, director of information services at Anglian Water. "CSC's strategy of combining SELECT's object modeling and Forte helps make the technical learning curve less steep and propels us towards more responsive IT systems."

Anglian Water, which was privatized in 1989, has over 4,700 users in regional offices spread throughout the Anglian region and provides water to more than 1.7 million domestic customers. Anglian has been making strides to improve its levels of customer service, efficiency and profitability, and is looking to update its IT infrastructure to support those goals.

Eighteen months ago, CSC completed an initial business process and strategy project on behalf of Anglian Water to evaluate the size and scope of the re-development project, which it is now implementing over the next five years. The systems are currently in the Business Process Re-engineering and prototyping stages. The first applications will be deployed next year.

ScottishPower

As part of its on-going investment in IT and customer service, ScottishPower's Information Systems Contract includes the development of new systems in Forte. ICL Enterprises, the system integration business of ICL, will provide the overall design and installation of an integrated Work & Asset Management System for use throughout ScottishPower's Power Systems Division.

"We are constantly looking at ways to lower our costs and increase the level of customer support and service," said Alan Richardson, managing director, Power Systems Division of ScottishPower. "The introduction of the new system will increase efficiency, job satisfaction and improve work methods, and, from this, we will be able to leverage our IT infrastructure to meet our business objectives."

Using personal computers in their offices, ScottishPower's staff will have direct and immediate access to details of their respective projects, as well as a database of ScottishPower's plant and circuit assets. The database will also form the information hub, which can also support other business applications.

Bass Taverns

Bass Taverns' Staff Scheduling System will assist pub and restaurant managers in planning allocation of staff against business. Currently, the scheduling is not automated and is compiled individually by each manager. With Forte, Bass Taverns will consolidate the pubs' resources, providing an overall picture of staff forecasting, which will operate locally as a single point of operation for all staff details, including sickness and holidays, and will later be linked to include payroll.

"Pubs these days can run from half a million to a million pounds in turnover (annualized revenue), requiring anywhere from 10 to 50 staff or more, especially if they are linked with hotels which then require various kitchen, cleaning, and reception staff," said Mike Jones, planning and development director of Bass Taverns. "We are currently using Forte and ECsoft Synapse on other projects throughout Bass.

"We think the benefits of Forte as an object-oriented, modern tool and its speed of delivery have already contributed significantly to our existing projects. More importantly, Forte gives us the ability to deploy our applications on a distributed system and delivers overall configuration management."

Forte Application Environment

The Forte Application Environment is an integrated set of object-oriented tools for building, deploying and managing high-end client/server applications that give companies a competitive edge in today's business world. Forte enables organizations to create and effectively manage powerful, multi-tier client/server applications, designed to support up to thousands of concurrent users with high levels of reliability and performance.

Forte reduces complexity for developers by providing automatic application partitioning, object-oriented development and independence from specific hardware platforms, operating systems and databases.

Forte Software, Inc.

Headquartered in Oakland, Calif., and publicly traded on NASDAQ, Forte Software, Inc. designs, develops, markets, and supports the Forte Application Environment for the development, deployment and management of high-end client/server applications. Forte has direct operations in North America and subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Australia.

Forte is also marketed and sold worldwide through distributors and value-added resellers. Forte has been adopted by customers in a wide variety of industries, including banking, finance, healthcare/pharmaceuticals, insurance, and telecommunications.

For additional information contact Forte Software in the United States at 510/869-3400, in the United Kingdom at [phone], in France at [phone], in Germany at [phone], in Australia at [phone], via the Internet at [e-mail], or on the World Wide Web at http://www.forte.com. -0-

Note to Editors: Forte, Forte Application Environment, Forte Express, and the Forte logo are trademarks of Forte Software, Inc. Other brand or product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

CONTACT: Forte Software

Rich Scheffer, 510/869-3422

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Phase Two Strategies

Carolyn Holck, 415/772-8415

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