SERENA Software International Announces the Solution to Year 2000 Concerns; COMPAREX Facilitates Year 2000 Conversion Testing, Saving Time and Money.

BURLINGAME, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 3, 1997--SERENA Software International announced today the latest release of COMPAREX, an intelligent comparison product that facilitates year 2000 conversion testing. COMPAREX is the industry's most comprehensive, accurate and efficient solution for automated file and date comparisons. It enables developers to directly compare databases and source libraries in one step, providing significant savings in both development time and money.

COMPAREX compares the contents of any two library's directories, files or databases, and pinpoints any differences. Detailed reports indicate differences or similarities in a range of different report formats. COMPAREX is completely year 2000 compliant, is easy to use and runs in either batch mode or as an ISPF dialog under TSO. It eliminates manual checking and automatically creates an electronic audit trail noting differences. COMPAREX is the ideal solution for tasks such as systems testing, regression testing, database conversion, source code reconciliation and has become the tool of choice for quality assurance, auditing, programming and database developers in more than 1,600 data centers worldwide.

"Our year 2000 team recently undertook the arduous task of year 2000 conversion for our company. We immediately realized this would be an enormously time-consuming process if we used traditional testing methods. Rather than manually reviewing files to determine if the correct changes had been made, we relied on COMPAREX to assist in the review process," said Thelma Rosenthal, senior business analyst at Chubb Insurance. "COMPAREX allowed us to maximize productivity and cut testing time significantly which translated to substantial dollar savings."

"COMPAREX is the ideal solution for those utilizing a PC workstation environment for mainframe development," said Nadeen Sakowski, director of research at SERENA. "The new Windows NT GUI now gives users the option to define the files for comparisons and the input keywords from a PC. The comparison is executed on the mainframe and the resulting COMPAREX report is downloaded to the PC for analysis. TSO consumption is reduced as the user does not need to logon to TSO to perform the comparison of mainframe files."

COMPAREX provides validation of the changes made to source code for simplified maintenance and automerge/reconciliation of multiple program versions for increased development speed. With the COMPAREX Workstation option, PC OS support enables programmers to work from a consistent interface across a client/server environment.

The Concurrent Development Facility(TM) (CDF) release 2.2.2, an option to COMPAREX, automatically merges and reconciles up to eight versions of source code, automatically identifies differences as well as their point of origin and highlights the conflicts in color. A user-friendly Version Editor is employed for viewing and reconciling versions.,(i.e. year 2000 code can be efficiently merged and reconciled with the current code, as well as with the customized vendor code and vendor upgrades).

CDF offers a number of new features and major enhancements in the three key areas of version consolidation:

-- Comparing and merging up to eight versions of source code

-- Browsing through and easily generating contrasting views of the differences displayed in color

-- Editing and reconciling the changes into a final consolidated version

COMPAREX NEW FEATURES INCLUDE:

-- COMPAREX Exit - allows users to modify the "difference" report by extracting and formatting certain key fields from records as they are passed during comparison. Users can display or not display the key fields when producing the "difference" report, providing the flexibility to inspect records before comparison and to format the portions of the report to be displayed.

-- 32-Byte Member Name Support - allows COMPAREX to support many products that require a name field larger than the original 16-byte member name, such as CA-PANVALET, CA-LIBRARIAN and DB2. COMPAREX now supports up to a maximum 32-byte member name.

-- COMPAREX Workstation - gives users the option to define the files for comparisons and the input keywords from a PC. The comparison is executed on the mainframe and the resulting COMPAREX report is downloadable to the PC for analysis.

-- Year 2000 Compliance - provides a solution for products that do not utilize a four-byte year, (such as CA-PANVALET and CA-LIBRARIAN), by using a fixed window technique. COMPAREX assumes that dates greater that 60 represent a twentieth century year and will print a corresponding four-byte year on the output report, while internally calculating and storing dates in the format of yyyymmdd.

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

COMPAREX supports the following operating systems: MVS, DOS/VSE, VM/CMS, MS/PC-DOS, OS/2, Windows. Pricing for COMPAREX starts at $25,000.

SERENA Software International was founded in 1980 and delivers software that enables superior development and maintenance of MVS systems and applications. SERENA provides complete solutions for software change management, file and data management, and testing. These solutions utilizes the power of the mainframe while exploiting the flexibility of a client/server environment.

Along with innovative software, SERENA offers comprehensive services to its customers including, frequent software enhancements, training, implementation services, and support. SERENA's solutions increase software development productivity while reducing the cost of computing. Corporate offices are at: 500 Airport Blvd., 2nd Floor Burlingame, CA 94010-1904 . Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] E-mail: [e-mail] URL: http://www.serena.com . -0-

NOTE TO EDITORS: COMPAREX is a registered trademark and CDF is a trademark of SERENA Software International. All other brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

CONTACT: NADEL PHELAN

Paula Phelan, 408/439-5570 x222

[e-mail]

or

SERENA Software International

Emily Burch, 415/696-1800 x219

[e-mail]