S2 Systems Adopts Bluestone Software's B2B and B2C Platform to Bring Mission-Critical Global Applications to the Web; Integrating Bluestone's J2EE and XML Technology with S2 Systems' Enterprise Solutions.

Business & High Tech Editors

LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2000

Bluestone Software has announced a long-term, global licensing and strategic alliance agreement with S2 Systems, a leading provider of transaction processing and information access solutions. Under the agreement, S2 Systems will integrate Bluestone's Total-e-Business, a comprehensive, standards-based, e-business platform, with the company's enterprise e-payments, transaction processing, middleware and enterprise scale application solutions. The result will provide S2 Systems customers and ASP (Application Service Provider) partners with a fully integrated solution that can dynamically deliver personalised content for real-time business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) applications and services.

"Bluestone-powered solutions will provide S2 Systems customers with the ability to integrate and extend their existing mission-critical systems and deliver them directly to customers' desktops, laptops, PDAs, mobile phones, and emerging devices using Web-based Application Server infrastructure, XML, WML and other standards-based technology," Terry Cooke, UK MD for S2 Systems, said. "Bluestone's Total-e-Business platform is a perfect complement to S2 Systems' well known, high availability, enterprise solutions. It is perfectly positioned to provide the critical infrastructure needed to clearly give our customers significant advantage in the e-marketplace."

Steve Bale, UK MD of Bluestone said, "S2 systems' market leading solutions, coupled with Total-e-Business' high speed high speed information delivery, fast fail-over, Hot Versioning and Internet Quality of Service (IQS), will deliver the performance, scalability and high availability expected by ASPs and their customers."

S2 Systems selected Bluestone's Total-e-Business technologies to establish robust, reliable e-commerce functionality for S2 Systems applications. Customers, in turn, will be able to provide site users with secure, high-performance access to personalised content, such as the account and charge card information stored in existing transaction processing systems, payment management systems, bill presentment and bill payment solutions, insurance claims management systems, ATM networks and other business systems within the corporate firewall. Going forward, the integration with Bluestone applications will enable S2 Systems' customers to rapidly provide a completely integrated Internet-based infrastructure to deliver high-value content in a real time, interactive fashion, thereby reducing costs and improving efficiencies.

About S2 Systems

S2 Systems, Inc. is a leading global provider of high volume, high availability transaction processing and information access solutions for e-Business. Leading companies in the financial services, retail, healthcare and transportation industries rely on S2's proven solutions to enhance operational efficiencies, improve customer service, drive company growth and increase company profits. With headquarters in Dallas, Texas and offices in Atlanta, Hong Kong, London, The Netherlands and Australia, S2 Systems' solutions are sold and supported in over 60 countries world-wide. S2 ownership includes Baker Communications Fund, a private equity fund investing exclusively in communications and network-based applications companies. For more information, visit the S2 Systems web site at www.s2systems.com.

About Bluestone Software

Bluestone(R) Software, Inc. is a leading provider of Enterprise Interaction Management software. Companies deploying e-business applications, like Avnet, CDNow, Food.com, MCI WorldCom, Planalytics, Reliance National, and Time Inc., rely on Bluestone Total-e-Business(TM), Bluestone Sapphire/Web(R), and Bluestone XML Suite(TM) to provide comprehensive e-business platforms, Internet-class fault tolerant infrastructures, and robust integration services that e-business success demands. Headquartered in Philadelphia, Bluestone's UK office is located in central London. The Bluestone website can be found at http://www.bluestone.com.

Bluestone and Sapphire/Web are registered trademarks, and Bluestone XML Suite, Total-e-Business, IQS, and Hot Versioning are trademarks of Bluestone Software, Inc. All other names, brands or products may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.