Gartner Study Shows Progress RDBMS Leads Embedded Database Market for Third Consecutive Year; Progress RDBMS increases market share over Oracle, Sybase and all others.

Business/Technology Editors

BEDFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 18, 2000

Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS), a leading supplier of application development, deployment and management products, today announced that for the third consecutive year, the Gartner Group/Dataquest study on the Embedded Database Market shows the Progress(R) RDBMS continues its leadership status. Dataquest, a division of the Gartner Group, reported in a June 2000 analysis that Progress Software holds over a 21% percent market share of what they estimate to be nearly a $450 million market for embedded databases.

"The low total cost of ownership and easy maintenance coupled with high scalability and exceptional performance contributes to the Progress RDBMS' continued leadership and growth in the embedded database market," said Joseph Alsop, president and co-Founder of Progress Software. "Progress Software continues to focus on improving the performance, scalability and flexibility of our database, to address the needs of Internet-centric ISV and ASP development efforts."

Progress Software increased its share to 21.3%, up from 19.6% in 1998. The company's growth rate of 20% nearly doubled the overall market growth rate of 11%. Sybase finished second, trailing Progress Software at 15.9%. Among other vendors, Oracle finished seventh with a 2.2% market share.

Dataquest defines embedded DBMS (Database Management System) products as databases that are sold primarily as part of an application, such as an accounting package. Embedded database vendors typically generate more than 70% of their revenue from Independent Software Vendors (ISV) or Value-Added Resellers (VARs).

Progress RDBMS Combines Performance, Scalability for ASP Business Applications

The Progress RDBMS has long appealed to ISVs with its reputation for high reliability and data integrity, and the industry's lowest total cost of ownership resulting from its ease of database administration. In addition, the Progress RDBMS can scale from small workgroup to large enterprise and Web-based applications used by thousands of users. These capabilities and the company's channel-friendly business model have contributed to the Progress RDBMS being embedded in applications that are used by over 20 million individuals worldwide.

The recent release of Version 9.1 of the Progress RDBMS includes many features and architectural enhancements developed specifically for ISVs building business applications for the growing Application Service Provider (ASP) market, such as improved scalability to maximize the usage of today's server technology, and database management features that support high availability.

In the report, Dataquest Analyst Norma Schroder noted that Progress Software's ASPEN(TM) Program continues the company's tradition of helping ISV and VARs leverage emerging market opportunities, in this case the application service provider (ASP) movement.

Recent Report Echoes 1999 IDC Market Research

This report from Dataquest echoes the results of the 1999 market research from IDC, who defines an embedded database as "one that is contained entirely within another software product...often...entirely hidden from the user."

IDC indicated in this report that the market for RDBMS grew 17% to $11.1B, with Progress Software one of the few major vendors to outgrow the market. IDC noted "The embedded RDBMS software market is providing an avenue for growth for Progress Software."

About Progress Software

Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) is a global supplier of software products and services for developing, deploying and managing business applications moving to the Internet. We offer messaging servers, application servers, databases, and application development and management products. Our partners include more than 2,000 application service providers (ASPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) who supply annually over $5 billion in Progress(R)-based applications and related services. Our products are used by over 10,000 organizations across 100 countries worldwide, including 60% of Fortune 100 companies. For more information, visit www.progress.com or call [phone].

Progress is a registered trademark and ASPEN is a trademark of Progress Software Corporation. Any other trademarks and/or servicemarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.