Concrete Incorporated Standardizes on RSW Software's e-Test Suite and Bean-test for Full Life Cycle Testing and Monitoring of Web Applications.

Business/Technology Editors

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 19, 2000

Internet Consulting Leader Achieves Exceptional Site Performance and

Scalability For Its Customers; Chooses Best-in-Class Web Testing

Technologies from Empirix Business Unit

RSW Software, the e-business application testing technology leader and a business unit of Empirix Inc., today announced that Concrete Incorporated has standardized on RSW's best-of-breed Web application testing technologies--e-TEST suite(TM) and Bean-test(TM) (formerly EJB-test). A high-end Internet consulting firm, Concrete now utilizes RSW's testing solutions to verify and monitor the functionality and scalability of its client's Web applications. Using both e-TEST suite and Bean-test, Concrete is able to test the quality and performance of Web applications throughout the development life cycle, and achieves faster time to market with more reliable, highly scalable Web applications for its clients.

With a client list that includes Bertelsmann's Online, LeMonde, Princeton Review and GoCollect.com, optimal Web performance is imperative for Concrete and its customers. Strict development methodologies and processes are core to Concrete's business, and rigorous testing of Web applications from development to deployment is essential. Applications and components of applications go through multiple peer reviews and inspections before they are approved for use with clients. To further enhance their quality objectives, Concrete sought dependable, accurate, and easy-to-use testing solutions that could be used in their benchmarking and performance testing to ensure delivery of scalable, high-performance e-business applications.

"We chose RSW's testing solutions because they help us ensure that our clients' sites will experience the best possible performance--even during peak demands," said Mike Flickman, chief technology officer, Concrete Incorporated. "At Concrete, we take application testing very seriously. Since it is very difficult to go back and fix coding problems once you move into the integration phase, we have developed strict guidelines for testing of our applications throughout the application life cycle. RSW's test early, test often philosophy mapped well with our quality assurance philosophy. And, by using RSW's products, we are now able to conduct extensive performance testing of our applications in days instead of months."

As a heavy user of Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs), Concrete utilizes RSW's Bean-test to effectively test the validity and performance of its EJBs. This is critical since EJBs are often used across multiple client projects. Using Bean-test, Concrete can now easily conduct functional testing, scalability testing and capacity planning for individual EJB components and groups of components. As a result of using Bean-test, Concrete has been able to successfully reap the benefits of component development and has created an EJB repository of pre-tested beans that are stored and readily available for continued use.

Concrete also successfully uses RSW's e-TEST suite to perform robust testing that exercises all aspects of a site's environment. Using RSW's e-Tester(TM), Concrete is able to quickly and accurately conduct regression testing without any programming. And, RSW's e-Load(TM) provides Concrete with extensive graphical representations of response times and data throughput--making it easy for Concrete to quickly identify and correct performance bottlenecks throughout the Web infrastructure. Both e-Tester and e-Load are part of RSW's e-TEST suite, which automates Web application testing throughout the application life cycle. The suite also includes e-Monitor(TM) for testing the continuous availability of applications after deployment.

"As a leading Internet consulting company Concrete has developed an exemplary design methodology that exposes scalability issues early in the development cycle and promotes reuse of EJB components," said Steve Caplow, director of marketing and business development, RSW Software. "We applaud Concrete's leadership in Web application development and are delighted that they have standardized on RSW's e-TEST suite and Bean-test as an integral part of their process."

About Concrete Incorporated

Concrete Incorporated specializes in building corporate and venture financed Internet start-ups. With a heritage of developing and operating their own successful Internet businesses, Concrete offers clients a unique perspective on what it takes to build and nurture an Internet company. In doing so, Concrete offers fully integrated, end-to-end solutions that incorporate Internet strategy, project management, design and technology, including network management with Concrete's NetOps. More information about Concrete can be found at www.concreteinc.com.

About RSW Software

RSW Software, a business unit of Empirix, provides organizations the fastest and most accurate e-business application testing solutions, allowing companies to optimize their e-business application performance. RSW Software's development-to-deployment approach to managing e-business application quality enables companies to maximize the reliability of their sites and their return on e-business investments. Comprised of hundreds of companies in financial services, communications, retail, and e-commerce, RSW's customer base includes companies such as American Airlines, British Telecom, People's Bank, Countrywide Home Loans, MCI Worldcom, Sprint PCS and a host of leading dot-com entities.

About Empirix

Empirix, the only provider of testing and monitoring products for business-critical Web and voice applications, provides solutions that meet the rigorous quality demands set by the Internet and communications markets. Empirix is committed to developing and delivering industry-leading testing solutions for e-business and networked applications that assure the highest level of performance and scalability. Formed by the powerful combination of RSW Software, Hammer Technologies and SST and funded by Matrix Partners, Empirix provides products and services to more than 1,200 customers worldwide, including leading Bell operating companies, Fortune 1000 organizations, communications manufacturers and major dot.coms. Empirix is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts and has offices in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Japan. For more information, visit Empirix on the Web at www.empirix.com.

e-TEST, e-Tester, e-Load, e-Monitor and Bean-test are all trademarks of RSW Software Inc. in the Unites States and other countries. Java and JavaBeans are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other names are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.