Open Software Associates' NETDEPLOY 4 Meets Corporate Needs Head-on; Newest Version of Leading Application Deployment Solution Previews at Comdex Enterprise.

NASHUA, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 8, 1998--Open Software Associates (OSA), today announced it will preview a significant new release of NETDEPLOY(TM), its ground-breaking application deployment product, at COMDEX/Enterprise in San Francisco this month. NETDEPLOY 4 features many significant enhancements, including integration with Microsoft's SMS and secure deployment to locked NT workstations, plus further gains in global scalability, network performance, ease of use, and time-to-implementation. It will ship this month.

"NETDEPLOY 4 is more powerful, faster, and easier to use," said Graeme Greenhill, president of Open Software Associates, Inc. "End users get faster and more reliable downloads with the introduction of persistent connections and local DNS caching, and automatic restarting if the link goes down. Application providers get enhanced integration with SMS, the ability to pack once and deploy to many servers, and a host of other security and performance enhancements. The new features put NETDEPLOY still further ahead of its competitors."

The NETDEPLOY Solution

Application developers or network administrators use the NETDEPLOY Packer to package any kind of application for deployment across the Internet or corporate intranets.

The packing process provides a catalog for the application that lists its components, their version numbers, locations around the network, and so on. NETDEPLOY works on any Web server, and requires no special server technology.

The new NETDEPLOY features were designed in close consultation with corporate customers' IT departments. The result is a product that can import a Microsoft SMS installer script and automatically create a NETDEPLOY catalog from it. The application's initial installation can then use either the SMS installation binary, or the NETDEPLOY installation process. Thereafter, NETDEPLOY delivers updates to users transparently. NETDEPLOY reports installation and update information back to SMS, so administrators always have access to up-to-date information about users' systems.

Easy to Use

With the NETDEPLOY Launcher on the client computer, downloading, installing, and running an application is as easy as one click on a Web page link. The Launcher then automatically makes sure that all components of deployed applications are up to date. The Launcher takes no system resources from regular operation, running briefly only when a NETDEPLOY-cataloged application is invoked. "NETDEPLOY is a significant step towards the zero administration cost target," says Greenhill. "A packed application is downloaded and installed without needing any intervention by the end-user. It makes central administration of corporate desktops very simple."

In many corporate environments NT desktop systems are "locked down" to ensure that end-users cannot install or uninstall software, change files or modify the registry. The NETDEPLOY NT Service version allows the installation and update of applications on these locked down systems without requiring the user to have administrator privileges, and without compromising security or control.

Global scalability

For organizations with multiple software distribution servers for their geographically-dispersed users NETDEPLOY 4 allows for multiple deployment servers to be updated automatically.

Should a server go down, the Launcher can use the list of alternate locations to maintain service. If a network link becomes unusable during an application update, NETDEPLOY automatically switches to the next best location and continues the update. If only one server is available, NETDEPLOY automatically restarts the download when the link becomes usable again.

For Windows NT Users

Release 4.0 of the NETDEPLOY NT Service version provides several security enhancements that make it eminently suitable for a multi-user environment. For example, NTLM authentication support allows:

-- the end-user's computer to provide the correct Windows password for access to files and network resources

-- icons to be placed in a particular user's group or in a common group for shared use

-- registry entries to be added for the user who is currently logged in or into the system's registry entries for all users.

New domain level security allows NETDEPLOY to allow installations only from authorized servers or domains.

Pricing and availability

NETDEPLOY 4 is currently in beta, and will ship later this month. NETDEPLOY is licensed on a "right-to-use" basis, with prices starting at $15,000.

About Open Software Associates

OSA is an Australian-based multinational software company specializing in secure Internet application development and deployment. OSA created the world's first Internet software distribution product and pioneered automatic differential updating with NETDEPLOY's patent-pending SmartPull technology in December 1995. Many of the world's largest companies also use OSA's platform-independent GUI development product OpenUI, and professional services to produce e-business applications.

OSA was founded in 1990 and is employee owned. U.S. headquarters are in Nashua, N.H., with international headquarters in Melbourne, Australia and offices in Frankfurt, Munich, San Jose, and Sydney. For further information see http://www.osa.com.

OSA, NETDEPLOY, SmartPull, and OpenUI are trademarks or registered trademarks of Open Software Associates. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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