Fujitsu Software Corporation Makes Internal Revenue Service's Work Less Taxing; Fujitsu COBOL speeds up IRS corporate audit process.

Business & Technology Editors

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 11, 2000

Fujitsu Software Corporation today announced that the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) National Computer Audit Specialist Group will invest close to $1 million in Fujitsu COBOL's Enterprise Edition product to audit computer records of large corporations.

The IRS has 350 Computer Audit Specialists (CAS) whose job is to analyze extremely large data files, some of which are held on tape. The IRS concluded that COBOL was the best language to deal with the diverse record and data types generated by corporate mainframes. A 32-bit PC COBOL product that was fully Y2K compliant was specified.

The IRS evaluated Fujitsu COBOL, along with other PC COBOL products. Fujitsu COBOL was selected because of its robust, high performance Windows-based COBOL compiler and runtime system, according to the IRS. In one test, in which files containing a million or more records were processed, Fujitsu COBOL completed the operation in 40 minutes compared to 7 hours for one the of the other products being evaluated.

"Although none of us enjoy paying taxes, the truth is that the more efficient the IRS is, the better it is for all of us in the end," said Ron Langer, Director, COBOL Sales and Marketing, for Fujitsu Software Corporation. "We're very proud that when IRS started looking for state-of-the-art software for its staff, they chose Fujitsu COBOL. It validates the fact that we provide performance superior to any other COBOL tools in the Windows environment."

Invented 40 years ago to provide a programming environment that helped business users create powerful applications, COBOL is continuing to lead the computer industry through significant evolutionary steps providing workhorse, record-crunching power with straightforward maintainability wherever it is required.

Fujitsu COBOL and PowerCOBOL can both be used to port existing legacy COBOL applications to the PC environment. These applications often perform better in this environment, freeing mainframes and midrange systems for other tasks. In suitable situations, large systems can be replaced completely by PC's and networked PC servers. Fujitsu customers have reported systems running on a PC in a fraction of the time of their mainframe counterparts. This can be an extremely cost-effective solution and may allow IT departments to balance application usage in a much more efficient manner. Fujitsu COBOL is the tool that is taking them into the 21st Century

Fujitsu COBOL Version 5, the latest release of the product, was recently announced and demonstrates Fujitsu's continued commitment to being the leading COBOL vendor in the Microsoft(R) Windows(R) environment.

For more information, visit the Fujitsu COBOL Web site at: http://www.adtools.com.

About Fujitsu Limited

Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702) is a leading provider of comprehensive information technology and network solutions for the global marketplace. Comprising over 500 group companies and affiliates worldwide -- including ICL, Amdahl and DMR Consulting Group -- the Fujitsu Group had consolidated revenues of 5.24 trillion yen ($43.3 billion) in the fiscal year ended March 31, 1999. With world-class hardware and software technology in computers, telecommunications and microelectronics, and a corps of 55,000 systems and services experts around the world, Fujitsu is uniquely positioned to harness the power of the network to help its customers succeed. Altogether, the Fujitsu Group has 188,000 employees and operations in over 100 countries. Homepage: http://www.fujitsu.co.jp/en/

About Fujitsu Software

Established in 1991, Fujitsu Software is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited, a $43.3 billion international provider of comprehensive information technology and network solutions for the global marketplace.

Fujitsu Software products include workflow, enterprise management products, help desk applications, application development tools, groupware and knowledge management products. For further information about FujitsuSoftware, go to www.fsc.fujitsu.com.