BMC Software Reinforces Position in Microsoft NT Server Market With Additional Industry Certification and Compliance; Microsoft BackOffice Certification and WBEM Compliance Enriches Company's Wide Range of Management Solutions for NT and BackOffice Environments.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 22, 1997--Microsoft Professional Developers Conference--BMC Software Inc. today reinforced its position in the Microsoft NT Server market by announcing additional industry certification and compliance with its products, including Microsoft BackOffice certification and the next generation of Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) compliance. Meeting market requirements via certification and standards compliance enriches the company's broad offering of sophisticated data and application management solutions available today for NT and BackOffice environments.

Studies conducted by independent analysis firms, as well as a survey of BMC Software's own customer base, point to continued strong growth for Microsoft's Windows NT Server operating system. Bob Beauchamp, senior vice president of research and development for BMC Software confirmed, "With 70 percent of our customers telling us they plan to deploy NT within the next year, we consider it vital that BMC Software offer best-of-breed management solutions, as well as meet the industry's rigid requirements for standards of quality."

"The Microsoft's PDC event is a unique opportunity for developers to see BMC Software's BackOffice, WBEM and developer support initiatives and to see BMC demonstrate its commitment to the Windows NT environment by showing Windows NT customers the kind of feature-rich, industrial strength management tools they need," said Tod Nielsen, general manager, developer relations and platform marketing at Microsoft Corp.

Certification and Compliance

The first of a number of BMC Software's application and data management products have passed the Microsoft BackOffice logo certification test, ensuring that BMC Software's solutions for NT Server and BackOffice are compliant with Microsoft's management consistency and quality standards. Products that meet certification requirements include PATROL(R) application management for Windows NT and flagship data administration products PATROL DB-Voyager(tm) and PATROL-DB Alter(tm) for Microsoft SQL Server. BMC Software is demonstrating these products at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference this week.

BMC Software also is working on the next generation of enabling technology that complies with the WBEM specification. WBEM is part of Microsoft's Zero Admin Windows (ZAW) initiative and is an industry-wide effort to provide a unifying mechanism for describing and sharing management information, without being locked into any framework, protocol or platform. BMC Software is one of the five original co-founders of WBEM. The new technology enables users to view PATROL(R) data transparently through any WBEM-compliant viewer, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, by taking information that would normally be passed between the PATROL Agent and Console and translating it to a format that is acceptable for a WBEM-compliant viewer. As a result, users have a choice between viewing management data through a proprietary or WBEM-compliant console. The new technology from BMC Software is expected to be available as a part of the company's support for Microsoft NT Server Version 5.

Strong Solution Set Available Today

Meeting industry requirements through compliance enriches BMC Software's broad range of application and data management solutions available today for customers using Microsoft NT Server and BackOffice applications such as Exchange Server and SQL Server. Today the company has more than two dozen products for this environment, providing backup and recovery; data administration; and application, database, middleware and operating system management functions across NT Server, BackOffice and other NT applications such as Oracle and Notes. With the advanced data and application management functions inherent in its solutions, BMC Software is one of the first vendors to produce tools with the functionality required to move Windows NT Server and BackOffice applications from departmental to enterprise-wide applications.

In addition, BMC Software's NT product offering will be increased through the PATROL Developer Network (PDN(tm)). The PDN addresses the management concerns of vendors developing products for Windows NT and other enterprise-class platforms (see separate release issued today). The program enables vendors to build or integrate PATROL management functionality into their own NT or Unix applications and sell those solutions externally. The company anticipates that dozens of new management products for NT will become available as a result of the PDN.

About BMC Software

BMC Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: BMCS) is a worldwide developer and vendor of more than 150 software solutions that monitor, manage and optimize business-critical applications, data, databases, middleware, systems and networks in distributed enterprise environments. BMC Software is the world's 12th largest independent software vendor and a Forbes 500 company, with annual revenues exceeding $560 million in fiscal 1997. The company is headquartered in Houston, Texas with offices, distributors and agents in 50 markets worldwide. For more information on BMC Software, access the World Wide Web at http://www.bmc.com or call 800/841-2031 or 713/918-8800.

BMC Software Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. BMC Software, the BMC Software logos and all other product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of BMC Software, Inc. in the USA and in other select countries. (R) and (tm) indicate USA registration or USA trademark. Other logos and product/trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

CONTACT: BMC Software, Houston

Lisa Cradit, 713/918-4228

[e-mail]

or

Eastwick Communications

Barbara Bates, 415/306-4195

[e-mail]