Artisoft, Aventail, BMC, Interse', NEC, Open Market, and Platinum Become Members of Stardust WinSock Labs; Internet Vendors to Further Interoperability of WinSock Standard.

CAMPBELL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 14, 1996--Stardust Technologies Inc., an independent technology testing and consulting center for Windows Internet software developers, today announced that Artisoft (Nasdaq: ASFT), BMC Software (Nasdaq: BMCS), Interse', NEC (NYSE: NIPNY), Open Market (Nasdaq: OMKT), and Platinum Technology (Nasdaq: PLAT) have joined as members of the Stardust WinSock Labs. As members, the companies will work with Stardust engineers to perform rigorous WinSock interoperability testing on pre-release versions of their Internet software products.

The Stardust WinSock Labs are managed by Martin Hall, Stardust's Chief Technology Officer and one of the creators of the WinSock API. Mr. Hall is also the founding and present chairman of the WinSock Group, the loosely structured industry coalition that in 1993 created the widely adopted WinSock 1.1 API specification. The WinSock API Internet-enables Windows software applications by allowing them to communicate using the TCP/IP protocol.

"We're extremely pleased to welcome Artisoft, Aventail, BMC, Interse', NEC, Open Market, and Platinum Technologies as valued members of the Stardust WinSock Labs," said Martin Hall. "Their commitment to WinSock will help ensure that present and future generations of Internet applications provide the transparent communications interoperability that IS managers and end-users have come to expect from WinSock."

Stardust WinSock Labs Membership Continues to Grow

Artisoft Aventail BMC Software Cisco Systems CompuServe Frontier Technologies FTP Software(a) Intel Corporation Interse' Mercury Interactive Microsoft MillenNet NEC NETCOM(a) NetManage Novell(a) Open Market Persoft Platinum Technologies PointCast Powersoft Quarterdeck SST SunSoft(a) SurfWatch Virgin Interactive Entertainment Worlds Inc. WRQ(a)

(a) denotes sponsor, the highest level of membership NetManage

"The Stardust WinSock Labs provide an indispensable service to the developers of Internet applications," said Karen Milne, president and co-founder of Stardust Technologies. "We've created a secure lab environment staffed by the leading independent experts on WinSock. Internet software developers - many of whom are competitors - can come together and confidently cooperate on the interoperability issues that are so important to the end-user community."

New Members Speak out about WinSock and The Stardust WinSock Labs

Artisoft

"We joined the Stardust WinSock Labs to ensure that the growing number of WinSock applications are compatible with our best-selling Lantastic network operating system," said Olivier Zitoun, senior vice president and general manager of Artisoft's Network Products Group, based in Tucson, AZ.

"Stardust's services, which include interoperability testing events, workshops, training and bakeoffs, will assist our ongoing Internet-related product development efforts and speed our time-to-market."

Aventail

"We're developing a family of Internet Access Management and Security products which allow network administrators to provide managed and secure Internet access to their users," said Evan Kaplan, president of Aventail Corporation, based in Seattle, WA. "Our software utilizes the SOCKS security protocol, which is tightly integrated and dependent upon the WinSock API. Our membership in the Stardust WinSock Labs will help ensure that our software supports the greatest number of WinSock-enabled clients and servers."

Interse'

"Interse' provides its customer base with the benefit of having Interse' market focus (TM) web analysis software products interoperate with other WinSock applications," said Terry Meyerson, Interse' president. "By working closely with Stardust, we ensure our products take full advantage of WinSock capabilities."

NEC

"We plan to support all major versions of WinSock clients with our SocksPlus firewall software," said Zen Kishimoto, director of NEC Technologies' Internet Business Unit. "It's essential that these clients work seamlessly with our server, and we're relying on Stardust Labs to provide independent testing services to ensure the interoperability of our software."

Open Market

"As a leading vendor of Internet commerce software, our desktop products provide full support for WinSock," said Chris Hanna, engineering director of desktop products for OpenMarket, based in Cambridge, MA. "We see Stardust's specialized services as a vital extension to our own development efforts because they free us to focus on what we do best."

Platinum Technology

"In developing the Windows client for our Apriori GT help desk automation software, we found that our customers were running many more TCP/IP stacks than we had anticipated," said Randy Weber, quality assurance manager at Platinum. "Working closely with the Stardust WinSock Labs, we were able to quickly test Apriori for compatibility with dozens of TCP/IP stacks. It would have been prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for us to attempt to develop the same level of expertise in-house. We're extremely pleased with the value we have received as a member of the Stardust WinSock Labs."

Founded in 1995, the Stardust WinSock Labs provide comprehensive support and services to developers and implementors of the Windows Sockets API. The company is located at 1901 S. Bascom Ave., Suite 333, Campbell, Calif., 95008 and can be reached by phone at [phone] and by fax at [phone]. The company's Web address is http://www.stardust.com.

CONTACT: Stardust Technologies, Inc.

Marty Bickford, 408/879-8080

[e-mail]

or

Dovetail Public Relations 

Mark Coker, 408/395-3600

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