New Version of ActaWorks Data Server Enhances B2B Ecommerce and Next-Generation Business Intelligence.

Business Editors and High-Tech Writers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 9, 2000

Leader in B2B Data Caching also Announces Interfaces to Legacy and

Other Back-Office Systems-Businesses Get Rapid Access to Data Across

the Entire Enterprise

Acta Technology, Inc., the leader in business-to-business (B2B) data caching, announced today the general availability of ActaWorks 4.3, the latest version of its award winning data movement-and-management server. The core component in the Acta eCommerce Data Platform, ActaWorks 4.3 contains many new features and performance enhancements that will enable businesses to package and speed the delivery of data essential for both business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce and business intelligence. At the same time, Acta announced the availability of interfaces to multiple enterprise systems through IBM MQSeries(A) (NYSE: IBM) and Acta DETAIL.

-- IBM MQSeries, the most widely used message-queuing software on the market,
enables users to exchange information between applications across more than 35
different platforms, from mainframes to PCs.

-- Acta DETAIL allows companies to extract, translate, move and load data in a
single step process--from different legacy systems.

Among the new features and performance enhancements in ActaWorks 4.3 is a multi-user development environment. As businesses implement a data platform to support both internal and external access to enterprise data, the need for multiple users increases. ActaWorks 4.3 also enables enterprises to speed up both batch processing and real-time message requests with many performance-tuning features.

"ActaWorks 4.3 delivers the latest in a solution that is helping enterprises around the world to transform themselves into winning eBusinesses," said Acta Vice President of Product Management Bob Hagenau. "Acta provides a leading-edge, enterprise-wide solution. Our ongoing product enhancements ensure that customers remain ahead of the curve."

Data integration:

Emerging Component for B2B Integration

The addition of these new enterprise-level interfaces, which provide access to data from a variety of sources, further validates Acta's leadership position in B2B data caching and integration. Data integration is a rapidly emerging technology that is an essential component of the B2B integration market for companies that plan to buy, sell, and collaborate online. Industry analysts size the data integration market at $15B by 2005, driven by the need to provide information-rich data to partners, suppliers and customers for collaborative computing.

As a pioneer in the movement and management of enterprise data, Acta is well-poised to continue leading the growing B2B data integration market.

"Data integration--long a requirement in the world of data warehousing--is now a critical requirement for effective eCommerce," said Philip Russom, director of business intelligence at Hurwitz Group. "There is a real-world need, especially among eBusinesses involved in B2B relationships, for software tools that pull together business transaction information, which is typically strewn across disparate IT systems, as a means of integrating eCommerce and other front-office systems with ERP and legacy back-office systems. ActaWorks 4.3 builds on its data warehousing heritage, expanding data integration to solve these critical problems in B2B eBusiness."

The Acta eCommerce Data Platform resolves one of the principle issues in eBusiness today: that back-office systems were not designed to meet the data demands of B2B eCommerce and analytic solutions. Those demands include speed, scalability, and access to both the real-time and historical data locked away in multiple back-office systems. By staging data from multiple systems in data caches, the Acta platform allows companies to deliver the data that is needed, when it is needed, both inside and outside the enterprise. The Acta platform consists of ActaWorks(TM), an award-winning data movement-and-management server, and eCaches(TM), a suite of packaged data caches that speed the delivery of back-office data in specific subject areas of eCommerce and business intelligence.

About Acta Technology, Inc.

The Acta eCommerce Data Platform is the first and only solution designed to make enterprise data B2B eCommerce-ready across all channels in the networked economy. With Acta's highly scalable data platform, enterprises can maintain a real-time, online dialogue with customers and partners-providing them the critical information they need for transactions and business analysis.

Acta partners with leading vendors offering enterprise resource planning (ERP), front-end eCommerce, and analytic solutions. The company's 150+ customers include IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Chevron, Shell, Monsanto, and other leaders in the Global 1000.

Headquartered in Mountain View, CA, Acta has international offices in London, Frankfurt, Paris, Stockholm, the Netherlands, and Zurich. Sales and partnership inquiries should be directed to Acta's toll-free phone number 888/613-3282. For more information, visit the company's Web site at http://www.acta.com.

(A)Indicates trademark or registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. All other trademarks are the properties of their respective companies.