Vision Solutions Inc. Appoints Dick Bains as Technical Strategist; One of the AS/400's Original Developers Brings a Wealth of Experience to the Vision Team.

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 20, 2000

Vision Solutions Inc. ("Vision"), a global leader in Information Availability Management solutions, Wednesday announced the appointment of Richard L. Bains II as Technical Strategist.

Bains formerly held the position of distinguished engineer with IBM Corp. During his years at IBM, Bains developed extensive experience covering three IBM platform architectures -- S/38, AS/400 and S/390. His role will be that of a key advisor on product research, development and engineering, emerging technologies and market direction for Vision's Availability offerings.

For over three decades Bains made many important contributions to the evolution of common compiler architecture for several IBM platforms. In addition, he played a leading multidisciplinary role in developing architectures that exploited concurrent advances in hardware and software technologies.

Bains was part of the original three-member architecture team, along with Frank Soltis and Roy Hoffman, that proposed the System/38. The S/38 and its successor, the AS/400, has become the most successful multi-user commercial system in the history of computing. He was also a member of the Rochester Advanced Technology Programs, where he developed the S/38 Pascal Compiler.

This compiler helped conceptualize the New Machine Interface (NMI) for the AS/400 and became the basis for all of the Integrated Language Environment compilers -- RPG, COBOL, CL, C and C++ -- and the backend intermediate code, W-Code, is now used throughout the S/390, RS/6000 and AS/400 platforms.

While at IBM, Bains received many awards including an Outstanding Innovation Award for "Innovative Contributions to the Success of IBM Products." He is recognized internationally as an expert on performance optimization and is called upon frequently both from inside and outside of IBM, to provide his expertise. Prior to leaving IBM, Bains was awarded a patent for "Method and System for Affinity Based Compression of System and Database Journals."

"Dick began working with us in 1996, when Vision was asked to provide the High Availability solution for the Atlanta Olympics. Following that success, Dick became IBM's technical liaison consultant for Vision Solutions. With his support, guidance and direction, Vision has become the premier High Availability solution for the AS/400," commented Chris Turner, Vision's chief technology officer.

Turner continued, "Dick's technical knowledge and expertise is unique in the AS/400 world and we are extremely fortunate that he will share this knowledge with us, our customers and business partners."

Nicolaas Vlok, Vision's chief executive officer, added "Dick's reputation and pedigree in the AS/400 marketplace cannot be over emphasized. Dick will quickly become a key team member within the Vision organization."

About Vision Suite

Vision Suite uses proprietary replication and data transportation technology to facilitate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24x7) computing operations. This enables continuous access to information for mission-critical applications and eliminates business interruption due to planned or unplanned system outages. Vision Suite's high availability products and services meet a critical requirement for businesses subject to financial and operational hardship when computing operations are not available 24x7.

About Vision Solutions Inc.

Founded in 1990, Vision Solutions Inc., is a global leader in the development and marketing of Information Availability Management Solutions. These solutions include Continuous Availability (Clustering), High Availability, Managed Availability, Data Protection and Data Replication. Vision's innovative products are used to maintain the integrity and accuracy of data in a wide variety of industries such as banking/finance, government/education, healthcare, manufacturing, telecommunications, transportation, and gaming.

Vision can be found on the Internet at www.visionsolutions.com and can be reached via email at [e-mail]. It is a member of the IDION group of companies.

All rights reserved. Vision Solutions and SYMBIATOR are registered trademarks of Vision Solutions Inc. Vision Suite, Vision Suite Clustering Edition, Vision Express, SOLO/400 and Vision Industry Partner are trademarks of Vision Solutions Inc. IBM and AS/400 are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corp. ClusterProven is a trademark of IBM. All other logos and trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners.