Attachmate announces widening lead over competition in ease-of-use -- confirmed by The Tolly Group; Competitive tests certify EXTRA! Personal Client the clear leader in ease-of use and new OLE development tools enhance move to Intranet.

BELLEVUE. Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 6, 1996--Attachmate -- The Intranet Company(tm) -- today revealed the results of ease-of-use testing performed by The Tolly Group on Attachmate's EXTRA!(r) Personal Client, the industry's leading enterprise and Internet information access solution.

The results, published in The Tolly Group's March 1996 report, show that EXTRA! Personal Client's 32-bit component has been certified 29 percent easier to use than its industry-leading 16-bit component (EXTRA! for Windows) as measured by The Tolly Group, an independent testing organization.

Previous testing performed by The Tolly Group designated Attachmate's 16-bit EXTRA! for Windows more than twice (100%) as easy to use as offerings from IBM(r), NetSoft(r), and Wall Data(r). Results of The Tolly Group's most recent tests named EXTRA! Personal Client (the 32-bit Windows(r) 95 and Windows NT(tm) enterprise and Internet information access solution from Attachmate) a full 29 percent easier to use than even EXTRA! for Windows.

"The Tolly Group has confirmed, in effect, that we are 129% easier to use than our nearest competition," said Larry Zito, executive vice president of products. "The results of this testing clearly show that we have fulfilled our aggressive product design goal of continuing to improve the usability for our customers."

In the study, The Tolly Group gave EXTRA! Personal Client "excellent" marks for its implementation of productivity tools, debugging tools, API support, keyboard support, documentation, and macro commands. EXTRA! Personal Client also received an excellent rating for its use of "wizards" for simple product installation and session configuration.

"The results of The Tolly Group's testing are a wonderful illustration of Attachmate's commitment to improving desktop productivity and helping to ease companies' transition to corporate Intranets," said Jim Lindner, president and CEO of Attachmate.

"As companies expand their information resources and scope to include Internet access and full Intranet services, giving the average user powerful information access capabilities without extensive training is a must. The ease-of-use of EXTRA! Personal Client gives companies just that -- a powerful information access tool that virtually anyone can use quickly and easily."

In addition to being the industry's clear ease-of-use leader, with Attachmate's recent release of version 6.0, EXTRA! Personal Client is now in its second generation. This release solidifies EXTRA! Personal Client's position as the only 32-bit multi-host access solution for SNA and TCP/IP environments. As other vendors struggle to catch up, Attachmate's EXTRA! Personal Client 6.0, which is available now, offers the proven ease-of-use companies demand while also providing the maturity and stability of a second-generation product.

"Our testing of EXTRA! Personal Client was designed to identify important aspects of host connectivity and quantify ease-of-use characteristics under Windows 95," said Kevin Tolly, president and CEO of The Tolly Group. "Our tests showed that EXTRA! Personal Client is significantly easier to use than EXTRA! for Windows which, in earlier testing, was rated easiest to use by a full 100 percent or more compared to products from IBM, NetSoft, and Wall Data."

EXTRA! Personal Client's other usability-enhancing features include web-like bookmark capabilities, and Attachmate's complete NetWizard(r) software management program. As organizations migrate to 32-bit technology, EXTRA! Personal Client's use of NetWizard eases the installation, metering, and configuring of software across SNA or TCP/IP LANs or WANs.

EXTRA! Personal Client also includes Attachmate's OpenMind(r) which provides collaborative groupware capabilities, Attachmate's Remote LAN Node(r) which gives companies remote access to enterprise information, the NetScape(tm) 2.0 browser, and a broad range of industry-leading TCP/IP applications including a stack, NFS, FTP, and many others.

OLE Development Tools

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As part of its efforts to give companies everything necessary to move towards Intranet services, Attachmate is also shipping a full suite of 32-bit client/server OCX-based development tools known as QuickApp(r), QuickDB(tm) and QuickPeer(tm). The product suite gives companies simple, yet powerful integration capabilities between host systems and commonly used graphical application tools such as C++, Visual Basic(r) and PowerBuilder-and are used in conjunction with EXTRA! Personal Client's complete object-based architecture and OCX-enabled API.

In the second quarter of this year, the company will ship its Web development tools that dynamically convert any application developed with QuickApp, QuickDB or QuickPeer into HTML, "on-the-fly." These tools will allow organizations to quickly and easily link virtually any host system into the Web using existing Visual Basic or Visual C++ applications.

EXTRA! Personal Client, along with these OCX and Web-based development tools, enable corporations to build sophisticated Intranets with easy, yet powerful, access to virtually any business information whether on the Corporate Web (Intranet) or the Customer Web (Internet).

Attachmate's 72-Hour Critical Problem Resolution Guarantee

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EXTRA! Personal Client is also included in Attachmate's revolutionary SUPPORTWARE!(tm) 96 72-hour critical problem resolution guarantee. Under the program, Attachmate SUPPORTWARE! Elite customers receive guaranteed critical problem resolution within 72 hours of the initial call. Attachmate's well established, sophisticated support system makes them the only company able to move beyond simple response to guaranteed problem resolution.

Pricing and Availability

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EXTRA! Personal Client is available now with a U.S. suggested retail price of $425. EXTRA! Personal Client 6.0 is available to the channel through major distributors including Merisel, Ingram Micro, and TechData. Localized German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese versions will be available in the second quarter of 1996.

Attachmate - The Intranet Company

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Attachmate is a leading provider of high quality universal information access software and services that help organizations build secure Intranets. The company's object-oriented client, server, authoring tool and management software safely link together enterprise systems, Internet systems and people. These solutions allow desktop and mobile users to transparently access, manage and share any business information inside or outside the organization.

The company leverages its 14 years of corporate expertise in enterprise and Internet technologies by providing comprehensive and knowledgeable customer consulting and support services in more than 30 countries to help organizations build high-performance and secure Intranet client/server systems. The sixth largest PC software company in the world, Attachmate employs over 2,000 people.

For more information about Attachmate's products, contact Attachmate's headquarters in Bellevue, Wash. at 206/644-4010 or toll free 800/426-6283. Attachmate's World Wide Web address is http://www.attachmate.com. -0-

Attachmate, EXTRA!, NetWizard, OpenMind, QuickApp and Remote LAN Node are registered trademarks and Attachmate -The Intranet Company, QuickDB, QuickPeer and SUPPORTWARE! are trademarks of Attachmate Corporation.

Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT, and Visual Basic are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

IBM is a registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation.

Netscape is a trademark of Netscape Communications Corporation.

Wall Data is a registered trademark of Wall Data Corporation.

Other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Attachmate Corp.

Walter Conner, 206/649-6551

[e-mail]

NOTE TO EDITORS: In the Internet/email addresses noted in this

news release, there is an "at" symbol between:

-- walterco AND attachmate.com

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