Crystal Unveils Internet Strategy and Announces Strategic Bundle Agreements With Netscape and Microsoft for Crystal Web Technology; Crystal Internet Strategy Sets the Standard for Business Intelligence On The Web; Crystal Announces Support For Oracle Web Technology Under Oracle Web Solutions Initiative.

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 3, 1996--Crystal, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Seagate Technology, Inc. (NYSE:SEG) and a world leader in client/server database reporting solutions, today announced its Web strategy. This will bring the power of its award-winning data access, reporting and analysis tools, Crystal Reports 4.5 and Crystal Info 4.5, to the World Wide Web. Under the new strategy, Crystal is introducing several Crystal Web extensions that enable publishing of business critical information from databases, database applications and data warehouse solutions to Web servers. This information enhances decision making capabilites and on-the-spot busines analysis for customers, suppliers and employees via the Internet and corporate Intranet.

Also announced today, major Internet solutions vendors Netscape and Microsoft endorsed Crystal's Web strategy by being the first to bundle Crystal Web technology into their products. Crystal signed strategic alliances and licensing agreements with these key vendors and is also announcing support for Oracles WebSystem suite of industrial-strength Web software under Oracles Web Solutions Initiative.

"As the amount of data available explodes and decision making is pushed down, organizations are looking to the Internet and Intranets as a way of getting information to the right people," said Greg Kerfoot, president of Crystal. "Crystal's strong reporting abilities clearly translate to this environment to assist organizations with distributing meaningful information. These partnerships with leading vendors truly signify that Crystal products are becoming the reporting standard for the Internet."

Crystal Embraces Internet/Intranets For Data Access, Analysis and Delivery

In a multi-pronged approach, Crystal is providing a wide range of Web-reporting capabilities including pre-defined, dynamic and scheduled Web reporting, as well as the ability to generate Web site activity reports in presentation quality over the Web.

Pre-defined Web Reporting (Information Deployment)

Available today, Crystal customers can download the beta version of the Crystal Web Publishing Interface (export to HTML) which allows Crystal Reports 4.5 developers and end-users of to publish reports in presentation quality, directly to HTML format, for viewing by common Web browsers. As a result, organizations can instantly distribute information-rich documents, complete with summarizing, grouping, graphing and sub-totaling, to a broad audience via their internal or external Web servers. Current Crystal customers can extend their thousands of existing applications and reports to the Web, as well as design new cutting-edge Web-enabled applications. The 32-bit beta version can be downloaded from Crystals Web site at www.seagate.com/software/crystal. The Crystal Web Publishing Interface will be standard in future versions of Crystal Reports.

Scheduled Web Reporting

The Crystal Web Publishing Interface is expected to be available for Crystal Info 4.5, a 3-tier client/server reporting system with powerful scheduling features, in calendar Q2 96. This will provide an out-of-the-box solution for automatic Web content updating. For example, an organization selling training could publish its courseware information and training schedule to its Web site, then schedule course availability information to update from the registration database at the end of each day. As a result, customers can access recent information to plan and book their training.

Web Activity Reporting

Also available today from Crystals Web site is the beta version of the Crystal Web Activity DLL (Dynamic Link Library), which allows Web site managers to quickly turn NCSA-standard (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) Web server activity logs into meaningful, formatted information for better Web site management. The Crystal Web Activity DLL is an Internet extension that enables Crystal Reports to read all the fields in the Web server log as common database fields, and create in-depth reports. As a result, there is now no limit to the level of detail and number of data views which Webmasters can access to analyze Web site activity.

"For example, you can take your basic Top 40 Web page hit list and add full-color pie-charts or graphs which give you at-a-glance visual weighting," said Crystal's own Web master, Ian McCutcheon. "Every line of your Top 40 report can link live back to the relevant Web page for instant reference. This report is now a very powerful analytical tool which I can distribute to our marketing team and content creators by posting it on our internal Intranet."

Dynamic Web Reporting

The preceding Internet extensions, the Crystal Web Publishing Interface and the Crystal Web Activity DLL as well as an additional extension, the Crystal Web Application Interface (which utilizes Web server APIs), are all components which combine to make up the powerful new Crystal Web Report Engine for dynamic report generation via Web servers. The Crystal Web Report Engine builds on the acclaimed Crystal Report Engine (which ships with current versions of Crystal products) to allow users browsing a Web site to dynamically refresh a report from a corporate database or data warehouse.

Sales representatives in the field, for example, can connect to their Web site, access a report called This Weeks Sales, hit the database to refresh the information, then view the information in different ways, all directly from their Web browser. The Crystal Web Report Engine will be available in upcoming versions of Crystal products.

Future developments are expected to provide Crystal customers with browser add-ons enabling users to analyze and manipulate reports in native format through a Web browser. Specifically, Crystal intends to provide Web add-ons to support all common browsers, starting with browsers from Netscape, Microsoft and Oracle.

Crystal Web Technology Endorsed by Internet Industry Heavyweights

Strategic partnerships have always been one of the critical factors in Crystals success, assisting the company in becoming the defacto standard for reporting in a broad range of markets, said Mark Sochan, director, strategic relations. Crystal is pleased to announce strategic technology alliances with Netscape and Microsoft, companies which are instrumental in shaping emerging Internet technologies.

Netscape is including a special version of Crystal Reports 4.5 in its upcoming Windows NT/Windows 95 version of Netscape LiveWire Pro, and integrated visual development environment with built-in data base connectivity for building live, on-line applications. This bundle is expected to include the Crystal Web Report Engine enabling publishing to HTML and providing seamless integration with Netscape SuiteSpot integrated suite of Web server software. As a result, Netscape LiveWire Pro developers can include both pre-defined and dynamic reporting capabilities in their live Web applications.

Microsoft currently ships a special 32-bit version of Crystal Reports in Microsoft Systems Management Server 1.1. Crystal is expected to make the new Web-enabled Crystal Reports available for future versions of Microsoft Systems Management Server, allowing SMS customers to publish and distribute information about their business-critical networks via the Internet. In fact, Microsoft SMS customers can download Crystal's beta Internet extensions today. Crystal has also announced support for Microsofts ActiveX technologies and is committed to enhancing and developing ActiveX controls as part of its Internet strategy.

In addition, Crystal is scheduled to support Oracles suite of WebSystem products under Oracles Web Solutions Initiative, enabling the thousands of Oracle and Crystal users with existing Crystal Reports files to immediately publish them to the Web. The Crystal Web Report Engine will take advantage of Oracles Web Request Broker API enabling it to seamlessly work with Oracle Web Server. In addition, Crystal is expected to develop an Oracle Network Loadable Object (NLO) for Crystal Reports, enabling users of Oracle Power Browser to access, analyze and manipulate Crystal Reports files in their native format.

Users of earlier versions of Crystal Reports can take advantage of Crystals downloadable Internet extensions by upgrading to the 32-bit version of Crystal Reports Professional 4.5 for just US$199. Crystal Reports Professional 4.5 has an SRP of US$395, and Crystal Info is available for an SRP of US$1750 (licensed for five users). Crystal Info 5-User Pilot Paks are currently available for FREE trial. For more info, contact Crystal at 1-800-877-2340 or [phone], or visit Crystal's Website at www.seagate.com/software /crystal.

Established in 1984, Crystal shipped the first report writer for the Windows operating system in 1992. Crystal Reports is the #1 award winning reporting tool with over 2 million units shipped, and is bundled with over 120 shrink wrapped products including Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 and Visual C++4.0. Crystals product line includes Crystal Reports Standard and Crystal Reports Professional (report writers), Crystal Info (3-tier reporting system) and Crystals 101 Reports for Microsoft BackOffice CD. Crystal is located in Vancouver, BC, Canada and operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Seagate Technology, Inc. (NYSE: SEG). -0-

NOTE TO EDITORS: Crystal Reports, Crystal Reports Professional, Crystal Info, Crystal Report Engine and Crystal Web Report Engine are trademarks of Crystal Computer Services, Inc. Microsoft,Visual Basic, BackOffice, Visual C++ and Windows are registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. All other trademarks are property of their respective companies. Seagate and Seagate Technology are registered trademarks of Seagate Technology, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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