Comshare takes issue with statements of Arbor Software in royalty dispute.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 3, 1996--Comshare, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSRE) acted swiftly today to reassure its customers and prospects worldwide that it maintains the right to sell and support Arbor Software's Essbase database along with Comshare's value-added applications despite a lawsuit by Arbor in a dispute over royalty payments.

"We have more than 3,000 customers around the world, of which 600 employ Arbor's database," said Senior Vice President of Marketing Steve Tonissen. "We are mystified as to why Arbor would go to the extreme of a legal suit in an attempt to satisfy a disagreement we are having in regard to royalty payments.

"We have a license to resell Arbor's Essbase database product, despite the fact that Arbor and Comshare have disagreed for some time over interpretations of some of the royalty provisions," said Tonissen. "Our contract with Arbor specifically provides for continued support of our customers even after the term of the contract ends."

"The marketplace has given broad acceptance to the value Comshare adds to the Essbase database through our decision-support applications. If customers buy Essbase alone as an unenhanced tool, they then have to program their own applications," Tonissen stated. "Comshare is Arbor's largest customer and accounted for 26 percent of Arbor's total revenue in Arbor's 1996 fiscal year. We are disheartened that Arbor would treat its largest single customer in this manner."

"The simple fact of the matter is that Comshare has paid Arbor more than $14.4 million in royalties since the inception of our agreement. Its lawsuit complains of payments requested to date of $450,000, for an audit period during which we had paid them some $7.4 million," said Kathryn A. Jehle, Comshare's Senior Vice President and CFO.

"The only reason we can conceive for Arbor to behave in this manner is that it is trying to raise fears among our worldwide base of more than 3,000 customers plus many current prospects. We welcome fair and healthy competition, but we believe Arbor's unfounded claims of fraud were made recklessly in a bold attempt to gain unfair advantage. We will fight those claims vigorously," said Ms. Jehle.

"In essence, Arbor's fraud claim is that Comshare never intended to interpret certain royalty provisions the way Arbor does. That is not fraud. Businesses ought to be able to argue about contract issues without accusing each other of fraud when they disagree. Comshare for its part has had complaints about Arbor's observance of certain contract provisions, but we had preferred to try to resolve those problems privately," said Ms. Jehle.

Arbor's complaint primarily asks for money. It also asks for injunctive relief prohibiting distribution of Essbase until Comshare has fully compensated Arbor for all damages alleged by Arbor. Arbor does not have adequate legal grounds for injunctive relief, which require that money damages must be impossible to measure or inadequate to compensate the plaintiff's injury. A royalty dispute clearly can be resolved by money. Raising unjustified doubts about Comshare's right to license Essbase is not an appropriate way to compete," said Tonissen.

"Meanwhile, Comshare will continue to sell Essbase as a database engine for some of Comshare's applications. Comshare will also continue its strategy of designing its products with an open architecture that can use multidimensional as well as the more widely used relational database engines."

Comshare, The Decision Support Company, develops, markets and supports complete client/server decision support applications designed to improve business analysis, planning, reporting and decision making. The Company focuses its applications software in four major markets: executive information systems (EIS), financial reporting, retail and consumer packaged goods. One of the top 50 independent software companies, Comshare has over 3,000 customers worldwide, many of which are Fortune 1000 and Financial Times Top 1000 companies.

Company Contact: Financial Communications Contact: Comshare, Inc. Lippert/Heilshorn & Associates, Inc. Kathryn Jehle, John Heilshorn, Partner Chief Financial Officer, tel: [phone] (ext. 104) 313/769-6723 Kris Otridge, Senior Account Executive

tel: [phone] Dan Jankowski Director, Marketing Communications, 313/769-8742

Comshare is a registered trademark; The Decision Support Company, BOOST, Commander Decision, and Commander BudgetPlus, are trademarks of Comshare, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

CONTACT: Company Contact:

Comshare, Inc.

Kathryn Jehle, Chief Financial Officer,

313/769-6723

Dan Jankowski, Director, Marketing Communications,

313/769-8742

or

Financial Communications Contact:

Lippert/Heilshorn & Associates, Inc.

John Heilshorn, Partner,

tel: [phone] (ext. 104)

Kris Otridge, Senior Account Executive,

tel: [phone]