STERLING SOFTWARE SHIPS KEY FOR ENTERPRISE 4.0; COMPANY ESTABLISHES STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP WITH OBJECTWARE AND ANNOUNCES KEY:PUBLISH PRODUCTIVITY ENHANCEMENT TOOLS.

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 10, 1995--Sterling Software Inc. (SSW-NYSE) today unveiled KEY for Enterprise 4.0, an enhanced family of second generation client/server development products for developing and supporting multi-tier, enterprise-scale client/server applications. KEY for Enterprise 4.0 is based on a new foundation that includes a distributed, high-performance 32-bit architecture. Beta site customers using KEY for Enterprise 4.0 have reported improved response times of 30 to 60 percent as well as decreased storage requirements by as much as 60 percent.

The company also today announced it has established a strategic relationship with ObjectWare Inc. of San Francisco in which Sterling Software will market KEY:Publish, a set of productivity enhancement components integrated with KEY for Enterprise 4.0.

"Sterling Software is committed to our customer base and their continued successes both today and in the future," said Stephen M. Bashada, president of Sterling Software's Applications Development Division. "With KEY for Enterprise 4.0, we are focused on delivering products that allow our customers to develop both workgroup and full enterprise-scale client/server applications. While other vendors are focusing on the realities of scaling up to the enterprise, KEY for Enterprise 4.0 is built on a proven and tested technology that delivers the development tools necessary to implement partitioned applications and on-line transaction processing in multi-tier client/server environments."

KEY for Enterprise 4.0 includes high-performance development features such as a new 32-bit architecture which increases model and diagnostic performance resulting in decreased development time. To ensure a high-quality performance release, more than 100 beta customers have tested KEY for Enterprise 4.0 and have reported significant performance improvements as well as reduced encyclopedia sizes of up to 50 percent.

According to Chrysler Corp., beta test bench marks indicate that the interactive response time for modeled objects has improvements ranging from 32 to 64 percent. In addition, the disk space required to store this information has been reduced by 56 percent.

KEY for Enterprise 4.0 meets customers' sophisticated deployment needs in multi-platform operating environments including Windows 3.1 0S/2, MVS and AS/400. Because KEY for Enterprise 4.0 is a true client/server development environment, developers can easily and efficiently distribute functions -- including program logic and data-- across enterprise networks. In addition, because the software is network protocol independent, developers are relieved from the need to re-generate and re-compile applications. Supported network protocols include APPC-CICS, CPI-C, EHLLAPI, DDE, TCP/IP and Named Pipes.

"Hogan Systems is successfully using Sterling Software's KEY family of products to design, develop and support our Enterprise Management Solutions (EMS) family of products and our Branch Platform System which are marketed to the top 500 financial institutions in the world," said Dawnelle Greene, vice president at Hogan Systems. "We have just completed our client/server GUI Branch Platform System using the KEY family of products and released our GUI PC front-ended EMS products in March of 1994 on schedule."

KEY for Enterprise 4.0 is the industry's only enterprise-scale, model-based development solution with a published API that provides developers open and direct access to information stored in the KEY encyclopedia. The underlying enabler of KEY for Enterprise 4.0 is its central encyclopedia designed for methodology independence, openness and support for Microsoft Windows and IBM Presentation Manager applications.

Formerly known as Application Development Workbench (ADW), KEY for Enterprise is a scalable family of integrated, PC-based tools for modeling, designing, developing, generating and maintaining applications in multiple client/server, midrange and mainframe environments. Since 1986, more than 100,000 units have been shipped to 5,000 companies in 50 countries. The products are recognized worldwide as the most widely known and used tools for developing enterprise and workgroup client/server applications.

In concert with ObjectWare Inc., Sterling also today announced it has established a strategic relationship in which Sterling Software will market KEY:Publish, a suite of object administration and publishing tools that allows users to more easily manipulate and report on data stored in the KEY encyclopedia. KEY:Publish was designed for KEY for Enterprise 4.0, an open modeling solution which allows vendors like ObjectWare to develop third-party add-on products.

KEY:Publish is integrated with KEY for Enterprise 4.0 and allows developers to establish and enforce standards for object names. Changes to object names, definitions or comments are updated and applied directly to the KEY encyclopedia, thus eliminating the need for consolodations. In addition, KEY:Publish verifies and corrects object information, including object definitions, comments and spelling of the associated text and graphics. The software also includes a sophisticated reporting utility that allows users to define reusable documents that integrate text and diagrams from the encyclopedia.

"We believe KEY for Enterprise is a powerful model-based applications development toolset and have dedicated resources to build tools to complement this environment," said Siamack Sioshansi, president of ObjectWare Inc. "We are well positioned to team with Sterling Software to provide users with the most flexible and practical productivity enhancement tools available for KEY for Enterprise 4.0."

KEY for Enterprise 4.0 is comprised of the following products: KEY:Plan, KEY:Analyze, KEY:Design, KEY:Document, KEY:Guide, KEY:Rapid, KEY:Team, KEY:Utilities and KEY:Coordinate. Also included is KEY:Construct which comprises components for client/server, MVS and AS/400. The products range from $895 to $10,750. The KEY for Enterprise 4.0 family of products will be available worldwide from Sterling Software later this month. KEY:Publish is available for $8,000. Quantity discounts are available for all products. Prices are quoted in U.S. dollars; other pricing is available upon request.

Sterling Software, headquartered in Dallas, is a worldwide provider of software products and services for electronic commerce, applications management and systems management, as well as highly technical professional services for the federal government. Sterling Software is one of the 10 largest software companies in the world with estimated 1995 revenue in excess of $600 million, approximately 3,600 employees, 75 offices worldwide and an estimated installed base of almost 40,000 customer sites.

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CONTACT: Sterling Software Inc., Atlanta

Kerry Stanfield, 404/231-8575, ext. 2311