CA AGGRESSIVELY MOVES INTO CANADA BY SIGNING MAJOR AGREEMENT WITH ONE OF CANADA'S LARGEST DISTRIBUTOR; Strategic Partnership with Merisel Canada Expands CA-Unicenter and CA-OpenIngres Markets.

ISLANDIA, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 3, 1996--In a strategic alliance between two computer industry powerhouses, Merisel Canada will distribute mission-critical business software from Computer Associates International, Inc. to Merisel's more than 14,000 Canadian resellers. With the agreement, Merisel becomes CA's first and only Canadian IT distributor.

The partnership marks the latest salvo in CA's broad offensive into the Canadian channel, an important market for the company. CA plans to increase its VAR presence by leveraging Merisel's historic strength in servicing the reseller channel there. One of the largest IT distributors in Canada, Merisel will distribute CA's award-winning enterprise management and relational database software. In particular, Merisel will focus on CA's Internet solutions, including CA-Unicenter/ICE and CA-OpenIngres/ICE, for enabling commerce over the World Wide Web.

"CA's Internet and Intranet solutions for the World Wide Web are a great addition to our VAR Division's focus, and will give Merisel VARs all the tools necessary to sell complete Internet solutions," said Bernie Schmidt, Merisel's national director, VAR. "We highly value our relationship with CA and are excited about how the CA products further Merisel's strategy for supporting our resellers."

"This agreement with Merisel Canada represents a tremendous opportunity for CA to develop the Canadian sales channel, a market we are aggressively pursuing," said Mark Marron, CA senior vice president for channel sales. "Together, Merisel and CA will provide a unique combination of services and technology to Canada's leading VARs and systems integrators."

CA-OpenIngres/ICE empowers organizations to adapt their database resources to their Internet business needs. CA-Unicenter/ICE is distributed management software for securing and managing Windows NT and UNIX commerce servers on the Internet and other TCP/IP-based networks, thus bringing the Web into the mainstream of enterprise computing.

Under the agreement, Merisel will also distribute CA-Unicenter, CA-Unicenter TNG, and CA-OpenIngres on multiple client/server platforms.

Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE: CA), with headquarters in Islandia, N.Y., is the world leader in mission-critical business software. The company develops, licenses and supports more than 500 integrated products that include enterprise computing and information management, application development, manufacturing and financial applications. CA has 9,000 people in 130 offices in 38 countries and had revenue of more than $3.5 billion in fiscal year 1996. CA can be reached by visiting http://www.cai.com on the World Wide Web, emailing [e-mail] or calling 1-516-342-5224.

Merisel Canada Inc., one of Canada's largest distributors of computer products, distributes more than 15,000 products from 250 hardware and software publishers to more than 14,000 Canadian resellers. Merisel Canada has sales and distribution centres in Toronto and Vancouver, and sales offices in Montreal and Halifax. Corporate headquarters is in Etobicoke, Ontario. -0-

All referenced product names are trademarks of their respective companies.

CONTACT: Herman Chin

Computer Associates

[phone]

[e-mail]

or

Lisa Held

Merisel Canada

(416) 240-26841

[e-mail]