Candle Announces New Version of CandleNet ETEWatch That Includes Measurement of Transaction-Level, End-to-End Response Time Across Multiple Environments.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 12, 2000

New Candle Service Offerings Enable Customers to Maintain

Response-Time Data Internally or Externally Via

an Enhanced eBusiness Assurance Network

Candle Corporation, a leading independent software company specializing in fast, flexible e-business solutions, today announced version 1.3 of its award-winning CandleNet(TM) ETEWatch(R) product, a comprehensive performance monitoring tool that measures transaction-level, end-to-end response time across a wide variety of enterprise applications such as Peoplesoft, Lotus Notes, SAP(R) R/3, the Citrix(R) MetaFrame(TM) server, Web browsers or other customized applications.

ETEWatch monitors response time from an end-user perspective, recording the time it takes a transaction to complete a round trip -- from the start, through the network, to the servers and back to the desktop.

"End-to-end response time data is collected and displayed in graphical views or stored in a database for detail, summary and historical reporting," said David Caddis, general manager and vice president of eBusiness Assurance Solutions at Candle. "This way, an IT Manager or CIO can look at an application's total performance for a single user, group or entire enterprise to enhance user productivity, spot network or application bottlenecks, or determine if service levels are being met."

Data gathered from ETEWatch can be processed and stored internally at a customer site using a packaged or custom database application, which Candle can help implement. ETEWatch offers advanced graphical reporting on that data using Seagate's Crystal Reports for response-time and transaction-level data on applications and Web sites. For customers who want to avoid storing and managing large amounts of data, Candle offers a subscription service through its secure, Web-based eBusiness Assurance Network (eBAN).

According to Caddis, eBAN's full-service approach offers senior executives all the benefits of ETEWatch, without having to dedicate resources to manage and maintain the data. With eBAN, data is gathered, cleansed, analyzed and presented back to a customer in the form of executive reports that are accessible from a Web browser. "The whole notion behind eBAN and ETEWatch involves making the business processes more effective and end users more productive, and IT decision-makers need information presented in an easily consumable manner to aid in determining where to make their technology investments," added Caddis. "Right now, Candle is the only response-time vendor with a turnkey product plus a service offering of this kind."

ETEWatch offers application flexibility through a new ETEWatch Customizer utility that plugs into many other applications beyond the packaged application support the product currently supports and gathers response time data without requiring the user to write any code, thus eliminating time-consuming instrumentation. Furthermore, to open the mainframe market, the new version offers support for the TN3270 protocol to optimize user productivity when accessing mission-critical, mainframe-based applications. With TN3270 support, ETEWatch is the only response time monitoring tool available for the mainframe environment.

"Industry buzz used to revolve around client/server applications and has now moved to Web-based applications, but the many e-business applications are still mainframe 3270-based," said Caddis. "We offer a way for companies to assess whether their vital mainframe applications are running effectively, service level agreements are being met or IT departments are capable of quickly identifying and tracking performance problems."

Household Finance Corporation (HFC), a subsidiary of Household International and the oldest consumer finance company in the world, uses CandleNet ETEWatch to fine-tune its business systems across 1,500 local branches in North America. Household needed to measure the performance of its branches, with an eye toward quantifying the impact of slow system performance on customer satisfaction.

Household International, one of the nation's leading providers of consumer loans and credit cards, uses CandleNet ETEWatch and eBAN services strategically in the monitoring of its industry-leading 'Vision' application (CIO Magazine -- Enterprise Value Award -- February 2000). Vision is a client/server application at the heart of Household's branch lending network, and the performance of this application is absolutely critical to Household's bottom line.

Rick Erickson, a Director in Household's technology organization had this to say about ETEWatch:

"Prior to ETEWatch, we really didn't have an end-to-end tool to know exactly what was going on in the branch network, from the end user's perspective. With ETEWatch we have complete knowledge. We see every 'click' and know the associated end-to-end response time for every click. To say that we have used this tool for strategic advantage would be an understatement -- major tuning successes have occurred as a direct result of ETEWatch. Our intention is to rollout ETEWatch to all of our mission critical applications."

According to Herb Chittum, vice president of Cornerstone, a Candle Business Partner, CandleNet ETEWatch offers resellers a clear value proposition. "With ETEWatch, Cornerstone Systems can offer our clients a solution that helps them manage their mission-critical applications," said Herb Chittum. "ETEWatch complements our solutions-oriented focus by providing service-level metrics on the actual end-user experience. These metrics will also help Cornerstone clients decide where to invest their technology dollars. We are excited to be partnering with Candle to rollout this very unique technology."

Pricing and Availability

CandleNet ETEWatch version 1.3 is available immediately and pricing starts at $25,000 for 100 users. The TN3270 option costs an additional $25,000 for an enterprise license. A separate utility called ETEWatch Customizer is available starting at $10,000 and allows the user to tailor ETEWatch to measure response time for a wide variety of applications. The ETEWatch Customizer plugs into the applications and picks up the response time data without requiring the user to write any code. It is easy-to-use and requires no painful instrumentation.

About Candle Corporation

Based in Los Angeles, Candle Corporation is one of the world's largest independent global software companies. Operating in 42 countries, Candle develops and markets over 300 products and services that enable companies to create, integrate, manage and measure the effectiveness of their e-businesses. Candle's solutions provide the speed and agility that are mandatory for success in the world of e-business. To find out more, visit Candle online at www.candle.com.

Note to Editors: Candle and the Candle logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Candle Corporation. Other products mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners. SAP and R/3 are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG. Citrix and MetaFrame are trademarks or registered trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc.