Axioma and Versant Demonstrate X-STP Solution at SIBOS Show; Axioma's X-STP solution, FARAO, enables S+3 instead of T+3.

Business Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 11, 2000

Axioma, an Austrian-based financial services software vendor is teaming with Versant Corporation (NASDAQ: VSNT), a leading middleware infrastructure provider, to co-exhibit at SIBOS, September 11-15, in San Francisco. They, along with Sun Microsystems and OeKB the Austrian Central Securities Depository, will be demonstrating the first commercially available, fully event driven, real-time X-STP solution.

SIBOS is the trade show sponsored by SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), the communications network used by international investment and banking companies to communicate trade and cash information, trade confirmations and settlements. Straight Through Processing (STP) is an important business area for all financial institutions as the Global Straight Through Processing Association (GSTPA) has set a goal of T+1 by the year 2003 for capital markets, such as the U.S. This means that financial institutions must achieve clearing and settlement within one day after a trade occurs.

Axioma has created the X-STP platform, which is fully based on industry standards to make a major step forward for the international financial community toward the ultimate goal of fully automating financial transactions on a zero-latency and worldwide basis. The X-STP platform streamlines and accelerates business processes for all parties involved in the transaction. Additionally, both clients and users of financial service institutions are guaranteed to be completed, reliably and efficiently, without human intervention.

"Axioma's X-STP platform is the basis for a suite of business components offered under the brand name FARAO. The FARAO components are an extended set of functionality over STP, covering not just the clearing and settlement process required but also other business areas like financial instruments accounting, tri-party securities lending, custody services, tri-party collateral management or legal reporting," said Gregor Nadlinger, CEO, Axioma. "With our partners, whole capital markets today can reduce the settlement time to just a few seconds, to what we call "S+3", using our end-to-end solution, thereby beating the goal set by the GSTPA of T+1.

Axioma selected Versant ODBMS (Object Database Management System) to provide the underlying framework for FARAO CSD the X-STP enabled solution for Central Securities Depositories - after evaluating several competitive systems. Versant's standards-based object-oriented solution provided the ideal platform for Axioma's technical requirements that included high performance and scalability for the real-time environment, flexibility to quickly and easily add new CSDs worldwide and an easy-to-use development interface. Additionally, Versant enJin, a middle-tier persistence cache, integrates with both IBM WebSphere and BEA WebLogic application servers, a key technical requirement for the solution.

"Because STP demands zero-latency for the financial institutions involved in the settlement process, a Versant solution is a critical middleware component of the overall solution," said Adrian Jones, VP European Operations, Versant. "Versant's multi-threaded, distributed object-level architecture, provides the industry's best performance and scalability to meet the demands of these real-time applications."

Additional information on Axioma can be found at www.axioma.co.at. Information about Versant enJin can be found at www.versant.com/us/products/enjin.

About Axioma

Axioma is a leading software provider of innovative and highly secure Inter/Intra/Extranet capital markets solutions that facilitate institutions to better market their products and streamline business processes. The Company's product suite FARAO enables financial institutions like CSDs (Central Securities Depositories), custodian banks, Internet banks, universal banks or investment banks an end-to-end zero-latency financial instrument processing. All offered Processing Lines consist of business components based on industry standards like JAVA, XML, ODMG or S.W.I.F.T. and guarantee flexible X-STP - eXtended Straight Through Processing.

Axioma is headquartered in Linz, Austria. Additional information about Axioma and its products may be obtained by phone at [phone] or at www.axioma.co.at.

About Versant Corporation

Since the company's founding in 1988, Versant Corporation (NASDAQ: VSNT) has led the industry in providing highly scalable and reliable object management solutions for complex, enterprise-level systems. Customers in the telecommunications, financial services, transportation, and defense industries have depended on Versant ODBMS for large-scale applications such as yield management, fraud detection, real-time data collection and analysis, and operation support systems (OSS). Today, Versant enJin applies that same technology to another large-scale solution, helping customers build their e-business and Internet infrastructure where scalability, performance and fast time-to-market are critical success factors. Additional information about Versant and its products may be obtained by phone at 510-789-1500 or at www.versant.com.

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the safe harbor created by those sections. These forward-looking statements include those related to Axioma's use of the Versant software and the performance of the Versant software. Versant assumes no obligation to update the information contained in this press release. The matters discussed in this press release also involve risks and uncertainties described from time to time in Versant's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In particular, see "risk factors" in the most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC. These documents contain and identify important factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those contained herein.

Versant and Versant ODBMS are trademarks of Versant Corporation. All other company names and product names are trademarks of the individual companies.