Watchfire Introduces Watchfire Compliance Connector.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 25, 2003

Watchfire's Relationship With Microsoft Provides

Advanced Quality, Privacy and Accessibility Checks for

Content Management Server (CMS) 2002

Watchfire, a provider of Website Management software and services, today announced Watchfire(R) Compliance Connector (WCC). Watchfire Compliance Connector enhances content management systems by testing Web pages for quality, privacy and accessibility issues as they are submitted for approval in the content management workflow. The company also announced that Watchfire has become a Microsoft technology partner and that Watchfire Compliance Connector integrates with Microsoft Content Management Server (CMS) 2002 through its .NET connected Web Services API and has qualified for the .NET Connected Logo signifying its use of Web services built on the Microsoft .NET Framework.

"Watchfire is a leader in Web site management and provides an enterprise solution that effectively integrates content quality, privacy and accessibility management into a single platform," said Eric Swift, group product manager for .NET Enterprise Servers at Microsoft Corp. "The integration between Content Management Server and Watchfire Compliance Connector provides customers with an effective way to perform automated page checks of Web site content to help ensure it complies with corporate standards, guidelines and government legislation. For those customers concerned about corporate risk exposure and costly errors that result, Watchfire Compliance Connector is a great complement to their Content Management Server solution."

Watchfire Compliance Connector incorporates automated standards compliance into the Content Management Server workflow to help ensure that content quality, privacy and accessibility issues are identified and fixed during the publishing process. This step reduces the cost of repairing issues once they have been posted to a website. Pages that fail one or more of the pre-defined compliance rules are automatically passed back to the content creator for remediation. Content Management Server customers will benefit from the integration with detailed reports that provide critical information about the health of their websites, allowing them to focus on fixing costly errors before they affect the visitor experience, and flag these standards issues as part of ongoing web content creation and maintenance.

Watchfire Compliance Connector uses the scanning engine of Watchfire(R) WebXM(TM), to evaluate pages of website content to produce compliance reports. The software identifies content defects on a page-by-page basis, such as broken third party links, standards violations such as the creation of heavy pages or to check for offensive content. These issues can expose a company to corporate risk and impact overall website effectiveness. This gives Microsoft CMS users the ability to more easily monitor their web standards compliance as a regular component of their CMS workflow. Content creators can use WCC to submit their pages to the Watchfire scanning engine, either on demand or automatically as part of the regular workflow.

"The integration of Microsoft Content Management Server and Watchfire Compliance Connector brings together complementary solutions that help improve the quality of web content," said Peter McKay, president and CEO, Watchfire. "Companies expose their businesses to risk every day, partly because they have enabled non-technical business managers to create and publish content. To reduce that risk, companies need a way to ensure that content meets corporate standards. As enterprise website content explodes, companies need to incorporate standards to bring order to their sites."

Availability

Watchfire Compliance Connector is available from Watchfire's direct sales force. For more technical information, please visit http://www.watchfire.com/products/integrations/microsoft.asp

About Watchfire

Founded in 1996, Watchfire provides comprehensive Website Management software and services. Through automated testing, analysis and reporting capabilities, Watchfire helps detect and manage content quality, privacy, and accessibility issues on the largest and most complex sites. Sophisticated reports put detailed, actionable information into the hands of the people who need it, when they need it. More than 50 percent of the Fortune 500, such as HP, Dell and AT&T, rely on Watchfire to optimize their website investments and to help them gain competitive advantage. Watchfire's alliance partners include PricewaterhouseCoopers, TRUSTe, Interwoven, Documentum and Vignette. The company maintains dual North American headquarters in Ottawa, Canada and Waltham, Mass. Further information on Watchfire can be found online at www.watchfire.com.

Watchfire, WebXM, WebQA, Bobby and the Flame Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Watchfire Corporation. All other products, company names and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.