Attachmate Announces its Bold Windows 95 Strategy — EXTRA! Personal Client Provides Technological Breakthrough; "This Time It's Personal"

Business Wire, April 17, 1995

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 17, 1995--Attachmate(R) Corp., the world's leading provider of enterprise-wide connectivity software, today announced the first, most advanced, and universal connectivity and communications solution for the Windows 95 desktop, EXTRA! Personal Client 6.0 for Windows, Windows NT and Windows 95.

EXTRA! Personal Client 6.0 represents a major technology breakthrough with its automatic navigation capability and built-in global access to any host, access to the Internet, full TCP/IP connectivity and applications, remote access, database access, object oriented tools and software distribution. All this exciting and diverse connectivity technology is available right out of the box. EXTRA! Personal Client 6.0 will contain both 16 and 32-bit versions of Windows on the same CD, for $425 (U.S.).

"It sounds wonderful, and if EXTRA! Personal Client does everything they say it will, then Attachmate will be head and shoulders above the rest," said Scott Mason for Chevron Information Technology.

"This is a major step forward for all large organizations which access enterprise information," said Mike Jennings, president of ProSoft Inc. "Attachmate has essentially eliminated all the confusion associated with connectivity software purchases and has removed the biggest 'do-I-buy it' hurdle in our Windows 95 rollout."

Breakthrough - Technology

EXTRA! Personal Client represents a crowning technological breakthrough by automatically navigating the user through screens, triggering events, launching Windows or enterprise applications, retrieving information and updating and integrating it via OLE 2.0 into other Windows desktop applications. The auto-sensing intelligence in the product remembers where in your enterprise you want to go and takes you back to that destination whenever you want. For example, a user can connect with a host application all they have to do is visit the needed screens EXTRA! Personal Client learns the path and posts the screen name to a drop-down menu. It will then take the user there again any time they wish, with a click.

Bringing the Best Together

EXTRA! Personal Client is a direct result of the Attachmate/DCA merger that took place approximately 90 days ago. The new Attachmate has combined the best technology from both companies including such award-winning products as EXTRA!, IRMA, RALLY!, KEA!, RLN, SELECT!, NetWizard, Host Graphics and QuickApp. EXTRA! Personal Client can reach, retrieve or dynamically link and interact with information from any host in your enterprise including mainframes, AS/400's, VAX/UNIX - via any server over any remote or LAN/WAN protocol including TCP/IP.

Not only will EXTRA! Personal Client set the corporate TCP/IP standard as the most complete TCP solution, it's also Internet-ready so the user can access public information and the World Wide Web with the same seamless ease as gathering information from your private network. No longer will large enterprises be required to seek out their IP Internet requirements from third-party vendors.

Organizations need to find innovative ways to distribute and manage software throughout an organization in order to lower the cost of software management. Included in EXTRA! Personal Client is Attachmate's award winning NetWizard technology which provides the ability to configure, install, meter and update EXTRA!, or any other software application or file.

"This is what the Attachmate and DCA merger was all about," said James Lindner, president and COO of Attachmate. "We were able to bring the best together to benefit our customers with a new technology standard in very short time to market."

"Personality" Defined Interface

EXTRA! Personal Client employs dynamic personalities which allow users to easily migrate from their existing user interfaces to the new native Windows 95 interface. This logical transition minimizes the impact on users when migrating to the new Windows 95 operating system. Users may also easily create their own personal interface environment that takes full advantage of the new Windows 95 productivity features.

"One of our key goals is to simplify the decision-making process for IS professionals," said Barry Horn, executive vice president, worldwide sales and marketing for Attachmate. "EXTRA! Personal Client will get the enterprise to wherever they want to be without breaking the bank along the way."

EXTRA! Personal Client 5.0

In order to provide Windows 3.1 users with a 16-bit version today, Attachmate announced they will roll out EXTRA! Personal Client 5.0. EXTRA! Personal Client 5.0 will include everything that makes up 6.0 excluding the 32-bit clients. This solution gives users the ability to buy the most advanced, fully integrated information access client on the market today. Similar to the 32-bit version, EXTRA! Personal Client 5.0 provides point and click access to virtually any host including the Internet.

Pricing and Availability

EXTRA! Personal Client 5.0 will list for $425 (U.S.), and ship on CD in May. EXTRA! Personal Client 6.0 for Windows NT, Windows 95 and Windows 3.1 will be available on the same CD late third quarter priced at $425 (U.S). Anyone purchasing EXTRA! Personal Client 5.0 before June 30, 1995, will be able to migrate to 6.0 version at no additional charge. In addition, EXTRA! for Windows, Attachmate Enterprise(TM), IRMA for Mainframe and IRMA Suite purchased between April 17 and June 30 will also provide a no charge upgrade path to the 5.0 or 6.0 version. This provides large enterprises with a simple and clear path to Windows 95 today at no additional charge in the future.