Micro Focus Acquires Millennium; Micro Focus Continues to Strengthen Year 2000 Consulting Business with Acquisition of Millennium.

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 6, 1997--Micro Focus (NASDAQ:MIFGY), a leading provider of software solutions for the development and maintenance of enterprise-wide application systems, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Millennium (UK) Limited.

Millennium, a premier Year 2000 consulting firm, is an integral part of the company's strategy to strengthen and expand the services offering of its business. The price of the acquisition was approximately 4 million GPB ($6.4 million USD), which was paid in a combination of cash and shares.

Millennium's experience is encapsulated into a flexible package of service offerings in project management and planning, business process improvement, development of resource deployment strategies, risk assessment, impact analysis, forward failure analysis, vendor management, automation strategies, training, implementation support and management, and testing procedures and standards.

"The most pressing issue facing our customers today is the relentless countdown toward Year 2000," noted Marcelo Gumucio, CEO of Micro Focus. "Based on its 20-year history of developing tools for the COBOL market, Micro Focus brings extensive experience to bear on the problem. However, we recognize that Y2K is not solved by tools alone, but requires strong consulting skills to fully assess, analyze, and develop an efficient and cost-effective solution, which is why we acquired Millennium. In addition, Millennium and Micro Focus are already developing solutions that address the European Monetary Unit requirements."

Millennium, based in Bournmouth, UK, has specialized in Year 2000 consulting since 1994 and has completed a number of projects for leading blue-chip companies, including British Telecom, Cellnet, Chase Manhattan Bank, Diners Club, Kodak, National Westminster Bank, Pitney Bowes, Reuters, and more.

Millennium takes a holistic approach to solving the Y2K problem. Systems and businesses depend upon one another, and bringing about change requires a "big picture" view to build successful programs. In order to ensure that the most appropriate solution is adopted and tailored to the needs of the client, Millennium has successfully integrated its talents with the client's own skills, experience, culture, and resources.

"The merging of Millennium and Micro Focus is a complementary blending of tools which provides the customer an optimal solution to their Year 2000 compliance programs," said Les Thomas, managing director of Millennium. "We believe that our experience in the U.K. market will translate well into Micro Focus's global organization."

Micro Focus provides tools and technology to help corporations meet changing business requirements. The Company's state-of-the-art programming solutions allow application developers to manage and extend their enterprise applications for: Distributed Computing -- Developing and deploying production systems in distributed environments; Legacy Solutions -- Moving application development and maintenance off the mainframe; and Year 2000 assessment and implementation -- Providing solutions for preparing systems to handle the millennium date change.

In the U.S., Micro Focus is located at 2465 East Bayshore Road, Palo Alto, Calif. 94303. Telephone: [phone]. In the U.K., the company is located at The Lawn, Old Bath Road, Newbury, England, RG14 1QN. Telephone: [phone]. For additional information on Micro Focus and its products, visit Micro Focus' Web site at http://www.microfocus.com . -0-

Note to Editors: Micro Focus and Millennium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Micro Focus.

CONTACT: Micro Focus

Rosemary Stone, 415/843-7180

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or

Miller/Shandwick Technologies

Mary Carlisle, 415/962-9550

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