Bridgewater Teams with Sun-Netscape Alliance to Deliver Real-Time Provisioning Capabilities for Alliance Messaging Servers.

KANATA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 28, 1999--

Bridgewater Systems Corporation, a global provider of intelligent software for IP service provisioning and control, and the Sun-Netscape Alliance announced today that they are working together to offer service providers a real-time service provisioning and management framework for the Alliance's messaging server platform offering.

The integrated Bridgewater and Alliance solution is expected to enable service providers to expedite the provisioning of large-scale Internet messaging applications, and help decrease the time usually needed to realize a gain in revenue.

Bridgewater's WideSpan(tm) system enables service providers to rapidly create, provision, and deliver real-time, network-wide IP services through an open carrier-class software architecture. The Alliance's advanced messaging server platform is powerful software for hosting and managing large-scale Internet messaging services such as web mail, Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP)-based email and unified messaging.

"The Alliance's advanced messaging solutions let service providers profitably expand their businesses in both corporate and residential markets, allowing companies, as well as consumers, to completely outsource their messaging environments," said Korak Mitra, Vice President of Messaging Solutions within the Sun-Netscape Alliance. "Service providers leveraging the Bridgewater and Alliance solution will have the added flexibility to creatively package Alliance messaging server applications in real-time, and the tools to dramatically lower service provisioning costs."

Mike Dormann, Director of Enterprise Communications for GTE Enterprise Solutions noted, "With an incredibly short time from definition to deployment, the joint solution by Bridgewater and the Sun-Netscape Alliance allows us to exceed the expectations of our subscribers in delivering enhanced, integrated mail services as part of our packaged vertical services offering. The consistency of user information across the network as a result of this relationship has greatly simplified our ability to launch and bill for customized IP services like Internet messaging."

"Bridgewater is committed to partnering with technology leaders such as the Alliance to give our customers the most flexible, scalable and powerful solution set possible to compete in the IP services market," commented Dave Curley, Bridgewater's Vice President of Marketing. "Recognizing that messaging applications, in particular as a hosted service offered by service providers, have become business critical. The Sun-Netscape Alliance solution is a natural fit for the open architecture of the WideSpan system."

About Bridgewater Systems

Bridgewater Systems is a global supplier of intelligent software systems for the creation and control of advanced IP services. Bridgewater has developed a carrier-class, integrated and scalable new approach to IP networking. The Bridgewater family of products enables the creation, provisioning and billing of policy-based Internet services, including corporate outsourcing of full-service intranets and extranets and IP multimedia services. Bridgewater has offices in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. Additional information on Bridgewater Systems is available on the Internet at http://www.bridgewatersys.com, by sending email to [e-mail], or by calling corporate sales at 613/591-6655 or [phone].

About the Sun-Netscape Alliance

America Online, Inc. and Sun Microsystems, Inc. formed the Sun-Netscape Alliance to provide easy to deploy, comprehensive enterprise and e-commerce solutions to business partners and other companies competing in today's Net Economy. The Alliance product portfolio provides customers with the industry's most scalable, integrated infrastructure software and a family of production ready e-commerce applications. The products are offered on the industry's most widely available product platforms, including DEC, HP, IBM, Linux, SGI, Microsoft Windows, and Sun. The Alliance software product portfolio includes: messaging and calendar, collaboration, Web, application, directory, and certificate servers. The Alliance also offers a family of production-ready applications for e-commerce, including commerce exchange, procurement, selling, and billing.

About America Online, Inc.

Founded in 1985, America Online, Inc., based in Dulles, Virginia, is the world's leader in interactive services, Web brands, Internet technologies, and e-commerce services. America Online, Inc. operates: two worldwide Internet services, America Online, with more than 17 million members, and CompuServe, with approximately 2 million members; several leading Internet brands including ICQ and Digital City, Inc.; the Netscape Netcenter and AOL.COM portals; and the Netscape Navigator(R) and Navigator(R) Communicator browsers. Through its strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems, the Company develops and offers easy-to-deploy, end-to-end e-commerce and enterprise solutions for companies operating in the Net Economy.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision, "The Network is The Computer(tm)," has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of high quality hardware, software and services for establishing enterprise-wide intranets and expanding the power of the Internet. With more than $11 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 150 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com

Bridgewater, its logo, and WideSpan are trademarks of Bridgewater Systems Corporation.