Sterling Software Ships Key:Enterprise 4.1; Company Adds New Features, Including Metamodel Extensibility, Improves Team Development Options and Publishes New Third-Party API.

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 5, 1995--Sterling Software, Inc. (NYSE:SSW) today announced the immediate availability of KEY:Enterprise 4.1, an enhanced family of second generation development products for creating and supporting multi-tier, enterprise-scale client/server applications.

The KEY:Enterprise 4.1 suite greatly improves developer productivity throughout the entire development life cycle by generating a complete system -- including source code, map definitions, GUI resources, database definitions and network protocol definitions. Formerly designated KEY for Enterprise, KEY:Enterprise 4.1. is the second major product release this year and delivers significant enhancements to the product suite that increase performance, expand AS/400 support and address customers' enterprise client/server development issues.

"In order to manage a dynamic IS environment, it's imperative that customers are able to incorporate their unique business perspective and requirements at the inception of the development cycle," noted Maria Smith, president of Sterling Software's Application Management Group. "KEY:Enterprise is recognized as the premier product set for accomplishing both this up-front modeling and actually delivering enterprise-wide client/server applications. With this new release, we're further leveraging the product's strengths as an enterprise platform by tightening integration with customer environments and third-party products."

All major components of the product suite -- KEY:Plan, KEY:Analyze, KEY:Design, KEY:Team, KEY:Construct and KEY:Utilities -- have been improved in version 4.1.

Through KEY:Plan, the developer now has the ability to extend the KEY:Enterprise metamodel to include properties unique to a user's environment. By adding property types to selected object types, more control is established over an organization's unique information in the model.

Significant performance improvements have been made to KEY:Team, the component that facilitates team-based development by allowing members of a workgroup to share a common dynamic LAN-based encyclopedia. An increase of approximately 15% in performance has been achieved through better memory management and utilization. Additionally, changes to the cache logic have improved initial open times in some tools and enabled better time sharing of the server during high volume requests.

KEY:Construct for AS/400, a code generator, has been enhanced to address the full life cycle of AS/400 development for either traditional host (character-based) or client/server applications when used in conjunction with either KEY:Construct for GUI or KEY:Assemble. KEY:Construct for AS/400 supports generation for the AS/400 platform in either COBOL or RPG. KEY:Construct for AS/400 also includes three new products: FastApp, a template-driven development utility for creating programs to maintain database tables through new development or re-engineered host systems; Encyclopedia Viewer, a tool for examining encyclopedia contents on an object-instance level; and an advanced Configuration utility for PC emulation and host installation environments. Another KEY:Enterprise component, KEY:Construct for GUI, is also improved with 32-bit code generation capabilities for either OS/2 or Windows NT.

KEY:Utilities features a new API for KEY:Enterprise encyclopedia data. More than a mere storage facility, the rules-based KEY:Enterprise encyclopedia actively increases both developer productivity and application quality by ensuring consistency among all specifications and design. This published DLL interface now allows for direct access to all encyclopedia data.

KEY:Enterprise release 4.1 is available worldwide and prices range from $895 to $10,750. 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 is one of the 10 largest software companies in the world with more that 3,600 employees, 75 offices worldwide and an estimated installed base of almost 40,000 customer sites in over 60 countries.

CONTACT: Sterling Software, Inc.

Eric Nilsson, 404/231-8575 ext. 2040

or

Sterling Communications Inc.

Marianne O'Connor, 408/441-4100