Calico Completes Acquisition of ConnectInc.com; Combination Delivers Leading Sell-Side eCommerce Functionality to Net Market Makers.

Business Editors &High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 2, 2000

Calico Offers End-to-End Sell-Side e-Commerce Application Suite to Address Needs of Large Enterprises, Dot-Coms and Net Market Makers

Calico Commerce (Nasdaq:CLIC), a leading provider of electronic commerce software and services, announced today that it has completed its acquisition of ConnectInc.com, a provider of technology and services that dynamically connect buying and selling companies via the Internet. Under the terms of the agreement, approximately 1.4 million shares of Calico common stock were exchanged for all outstanding shares, options and warrants of ConnectInc.com. The transaction will be accounted for as a purchase transaction.

The acquisition of ConnectInc.com extends Calico's leadership in sell-side e-Commerce and demonstrates an aggressive movement into the explosive Net markets segment. The acquisition also makes Calico the only company to offer an end-to-end, open application server-based sell-side e-Commerce product suite designed to serve the unique needs of Global 2000 enterprises, dot-com companies and Net market makers. Calico's e-Commerce platform allows customers to handle complex products, processes and relationships via the Web. As a result, these organizations are able to accelerate time to market, drive sales and create a compelling and effective e-Commerce experience.

B2B market leaders will benefit from Calico's move into this space. &uot;As a leading creator and operator of B2B vertical marketplaces, Chemdex recognizes that sophisticated sell-side capabilities are an important part of a successful B2B market offering,&uot; said Pierre Samec, chief information officer, Chemdex (Nasdaq:CMDX). &uot;We believe that Calico's strategic investments in this area will enable them to rapidly expand their presence in existing and future net markets.&uot;

Calico Powers Net Markets with Expanded Offering

Through ConnectInc.com, Calico will gain a robust technology platform and the expertise to deliver virtual marketplaces for hosting multiple buyers and multiple sellers. Organizations can use this proven technology to quickly get Net marketplaces up and running, while leveraging Calico's best-of-breed personalization capabilities to differentiate marketplace offerings and proactively engage customers for repeat business.

Calico's broad e-Commerce platform solution can also address the growing sell-side needs of Net market makers. As these organizations grow and become even more complex, Calico can provide them with such sell-side eCommerce capabilities as dynamic pricing, custom configuration and custom selling to support their diverse eBusiness needs.

&uot;Calico's timing is good -- the Net market sector is exploding now, and acquisitions have rolled several competitors into bigger companies,&uot; said Tim Clark, vice president of advisory services at Net Market Makers, (www.netmarketmakers.com), the hub for growing Net markets. &uot;Unlike the online procurement vendors that have dominated the scene, Calico is focused on sellers. The addition of ConnectInc.com's market-making technology to Calico's sell-side personalization and guided selling software creates an option Net markets should consider.&uot;

&uot;A focused investment in building powerful e-solutions for the Net market space is a sound, strategic move for Calico,&uot; said Walt Wilson, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Exclaim Technologies, Inc. (a ConnectInc.com customer). &uot;We look forward to continuing our important relationship with the combined companies.&uot;

Standards-Based Architecture Makes eBusiness More Efficient

Organizations are spending tremendous money and resources trying to integrate disparate systems, and often lack a standards-based platform on which to build their e-Commerce solutions. Calico and ConnectInc.com have a standard-based, open architecture in common that will help companies more efficiently integrate Calico's technology into their existing systems, enable them to leverage the information systems in which they have already invested and bring new e-Commerce applications to market quickly.

&uot;Calico has set a benchmark for others to follow in adopting an industry-standard application server as the platform for its e-Commerce applications,&uot; said Joe Menard, president of the BEA (Nasdaq:BEAS) E-Commerce Server Division. &uot;Today, Calico is making a strategic move to extend its sell-side offering to target the growing needs of Net market makers. Like BEA, Calico and ConnectInc.com share a commitment to industry-standards and an open architecture that will enable their customers to spend less time on integration and more time on building feature-rich applications, getting digital marketplaces up, running, and generating revenue fast.&uot;

Calico Creates Net Markets Business Unit

Net market makers are a rapidly growing segment of the B2B e-Commerce marketplace. The Gartner Group is forecasting worldwide B2B e-Commerce to grow from $145 billion in 1999 to $7.3 trillion in 2004, and Net markets are projected to facilitate 37 percent of the overall market.

In order to focus dedicated resources on this rapidly growing market segment, Calico has formed a new Net Markets Business Unit and focused more than 60 engineers, sales, marketing and professional services personnel on serving the unique needs of Net market makers. Alan McMurray, vice president of professional services at Calico, has been appointed to general manager of the new business unit. McMurray has more than 18 years of sales and professional services experience in the high-technology sector, an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA from Harvard University. Prior to joining Calico Commerce, he served as vice president of professional services at TravelNet, Inc. and held a variety of management positions at IBM/Rolm and Aspect Telecommunications.

&uot;The acquisition of ConnectInc.com provides Calico with an advanced transaction, catalog and order management platform, which will expand our leadership position in sell-side e-Commerce and allow Calico to serve the unique eBusiness needs of our customers, whether they are established enterprises or emerging Net market makers,&uot; said Alan Naumann, president and CEO, Calico Commerce. &uot;And by forming a business unit focused on serving the trading community marketplace, we will be able to better serve our customers, expand our market presence and accelerate our growth rate.&uot;

Proven Customer Success

The addition of ConnectInc.com personnel, technology and experience in Net markets, uniquely positions Calico to get Net marketplaces up extremely quickly and address the unique business needs of organizations in a wide variety of industries.

Calico's customer-focused electronic commerce solution, Calico eSales, broadens with the addition of product catalog, order management and business-to-business e-Commerce process automation capabilities from ConnectInc.com. This technology is key to Calico's strategy for providing best-of-breed e-Commerce applications for large enterprises that sell complex products over the Web. In addition, dot-com companies will benefit from proven eSales solutions that will turbo-charge their selling channel, resulting in reduced time to market, a compelling customer experience and lasting competitive advantage.

Together Calico and ConnectInc.com power more than 70 enterprise, dot-com and Net market maker eBusiness initiatives, including Motorola, Dell, Qwest, Nortel, Cisco, General Electric, Kodak, Best Buy, Chemdex, Home Depot, GrowZone, iCongo.com, edu.com, HomePortfolio, NextMonet, TheAgZone, Exclaim Technologies, OneSwoop.com and Promedix.

About Calico Commerce, Inc.

Calico Commerce, Inc., headquartered in San Jose, Calif. and with offices throughout the United States and Europe, provides an integrated sell-side e-Commerce application suite that enables leading corporations to sell complex products and over the Internet, through existing channels and within online trading communities. Calico eSales is a customer-focused electronic commerce solution that matches unique customer needs to customized products to drive revenue growth, increase customer satisfaction and achieve a competitive advantage. Calico eSales is deployed across the Internet, intranets, extranets and corporate networks and can be accessed through desktop and mobile computers and retail kiosks. Calico customers include leaders in high-technology hardware, manufacturing, telecommunications services, financial services, home furnishings, chemicals, agriculture and retail. Calico Commerce, Inc. can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.calico.com/.

Join us for Leaders in Commerce 2000 (Feb. 27-29, 2000) and learn how Calico's users are leveraging Calico eSales(TM) to create competitive advantage and increase sales and customer loyalty. For more information about this year's Calico User's Group, visit the company's Web site at http://www.calico.com/leaders2000/index.html.

Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in news releases contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Potential risks and uncertainties are described in detail in public reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission such as Calico's Registration Statement on Form S-1 and on Form S-4 in connection with the ConnectInc.com acquisition.