Verity Launches Scaleable, Precision, Knowledge Retrieval Software; New Product Offerings are Result of Company's Intensified Focus on Enterprise Knowledge Retrieval.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 21, 1998--Verity, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRTY), the leading provider of knowledge retrieval solutions, today announced the Verity K2 Toolkit, the first scaleable, precision, high-performance knowledge retrieval software for the enterprise. Verity's new solution solves the challenge of delivering access to large volumes of unstructured business information hosted on corporate intranets or the Internet without compromising user performance.

Financial Times Electronic Publishing is the first customer to implement a mission critical on-line application built with the Verity K2 Toolkit. Financial Times Electronic Publishing is using Verity's advanced technology to enable a new generation, high-capacity, on-line information service. Using the Verity K2 Toolkit, subscribers to Financial Times Electronic Publishing will be able to precisely search an archive of millions of documents with very fast response times. Verity's K2 architecture is designed for systems like those of Financial Times Electronic Publishing, requiring scalability, precision and capacity. Verity's K2 software meets these requirements by exploiting the latest in symmetric multiprocessing, parallel search and fault-tolerant operations.

"The dynamic nature of our market makes it necessary for us to offer an equally dynamic, scaleable information retrieval solution that can handle hundreds of concurrent users interacting with applications that we can't even imagine yet," said Donal Smith, Managing Director of Financial Times Electronic Publishing.

"Using Verity K2 technology, we have now built a framework to develop Financial Times Electronic Publishing solutions that give our customers access to our premium on-line information services, without compromising our high level of service."

Verity K2 Toolkit Offers Scaleable, Precision Parallel Architecture

The Verity K2 Toolkit uses a scaleable, parallel hardware and software architecture. The initial performance, capacity and fault tolerance targets are achieved by combining the design of multiple hardware nodes, processors and disk paths, with a parallel software architecture of concurrent K2 brokers and K2 servers. Precision is maintained through the proven Verity concept query language and Topics. Scalability of additional users, increased content and system performance, is delivered by adding additional K2 servers, K2 brokers, processors, hardware nodes and disk access. Indexes are distributed evenly across the architecture for balanced throughput and elimination of any single point of failure. "The ability to spread a single index across multiple processors or to spread a single index across multiple nodes and multiple processors provides great flexibility in designing scaleable, precision fault-tolerant applications," said Hugh Njemanze, Verity's Chief Technology Officer. "K2's flexibility supports many different kinds of applications, including single large document repositories, high-performance precision fault-tolerant systems, and solutions where distributed data from Web Servers, file servers, and other content archives is coordinated thorough a centralized index management design."

The Verity K2 Toolkit is available for the IBM AIX, HP/UX, Digital Unix, and Sun Solaris operating systems and uses the hardware vendors latest SMP architectures. Customers can run the Verity K2 applications using any combination of servers running one or more of these operating systems. Verity also offers a full range of consulting services for Verity K2 projects. Pricing is based on specific application requirements.

Verity Continues to Focus on Enterprise Knowledge Retrieval

The new Verity K2 Toolkit is the latest announcement regarding the company's continued focus on knowledge retrieval needs of large organizations. The company announced its refocus on the enterprise in the fall of 1997. This news, combined with recent announcements with major customers such as KPMG, British Petroleum, Shiva Corporation, Nomura Securities and Glaxo Wellcome, demonstrate the company's continued success in this market. The company's efforts have significantly improved sales and Verity's overall financial performance.

"In recent months we've realigned our products, our sales force, our pricing, our support and our market message around the needs of enterprise knowledge retrieval and we are pleased by the improved performance our focus has helped us achieve," said Gary Sbona, Verity's Chief Executive Officer. "Verity's improvements are the result of the entire company's commitment to our enterprise mission and focus."

At the end of 1997, Verity had the largest share (28%) of the text retrieval market, according to International Data Corporation (IDC). In January, the company won the Delphi Computing Group's award for the most popular information retrieval technology, based on a survey of 600 users. Verity's technology is embedded in more than 300 OEM partner products, including solutions by Adobe, Documentum, Scopus, SAP and Sun Microsystems.

Additionally, more than 700 corporate customers, including Amoco, Federal Express and KPMG, use Verity's award-winning technology as part of their corporate intranet solution. Today, companies use Verity Information Server and Verity Agent Server not only to search and retrieve, but to gain and proliferate knowledge throughout an organization.

About Verity

Verity's products are used by more than 1,000 corporations, government agencies, on-line service providers, Internet publishers and software developers worldwide. Verity partners include Adobe Systems, AT&T, CNET, Cisco, Compaq, Dow Jones, Ernst and Young, Financial Times, NewsEDGE Corporation, Informix, NEC, Netscape Communications, PC DOCS, SAP, SCO, Siemens Nixdorf, Sybase, Tandem and Times Mirror Pathfinder.

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