Survey Shows StarNine's WebSTAR Product Line Dominates The Commercial WEB Server Market; With 66% marketshare, StarNine leads commercial web server market by a wide margin, according to Georgia Institute of Technology

Business Wire, July 14, 1995

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 14, 1995--StarNine Technologies, Inc. highlighted a study conducted by the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center (GVU) at the Georgia Institute of Technology which shows that the company's WebSTAR product line commands 66% of the market for commercially available Web servers and 20% of the overall Web server market.

StarNine's WebSTAR product line includes MacHTTP, a shareware product and WebSTAR, the newly released industrial-strength upgrade to MacHTTP. WebSTAR provides significantly increased performance and even greater ease-of-use than MacHTTP.

"The results of GVU's study are consistent with the Macintosh's strength in the desktop publishing and multimedia markets," said David Thompson, director of marketing at StarNine. "MacHTTP and WebSTAR have done for Web-top publishing what PageMaker did for the Mac and desktop publishing. This study demonstrates how successful our products have been bringing powerful Web services to a wide audience."

The server-usage study was part of GVU's third extensive online survey conducted as a public service with preliminary results available at (URL:http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/ ). The survey was conducted from April 10 through May 10, 1995 and was endorsed by both the World Wide Web Consortium and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

RESULTS ANALYSIS

Among the commercially supported Web servers counted by the study, the WebSTAR product line accounts for 66% of the servers used, with WinHTTP being the second most widely used at 18%. Netscape Communications Corp.'s Netsite server holds 10% of the commercial market, with other commercial servers accounting for less than 6%.

The WebSTAR product line commands 21% of the overall Web server market, which includes free, unsupported servers from NCSA and CERN. "Although some people may be surprised that MacHTTP is so popular, it makes perfect sense considering the Mac's inherent ease-of-use," concluded Thompson. "What's more, WebSTAR adds a tremendous amount of power and scalability."

WebSTAR: INDUSTRIAL STRENGTH UPGRADE TO MacHTTP

WebSTAR is now available for purchase electronically via the Internet at (URL:http://www.starnine.com/ ). WebSTAR with an expanded suite of tools will be available on floppy disc and CD-ROM sometime this summer. The online version available now includes WebSTAR Server software, AppleScript, MacTCP, the documentation and an easy installer. Currently, the special introductory price for the online version of WebSTAR is $99 for MacHTTP users (registered as of May 2, 1995) and $349 for new users. After July 31, 1995 the suggested retail price for WebSTAR increases to $495 for MacHTTP users (registered as of May 2, 1995) and $795 for new users. Significant discounts are available for educational institutions. Additional pricing information is available at (URL:http://www.starnine.com/w sorders/orderingws.html).

WebSTAR, which runs native on Power Macs, now takes full advantage of Apple's Thread Manager to achieve throughput three to four times faster than MacHTTP. WebSTAR can easily serve hundreds of thousands of connections per day and is price-competitive with UNIX alternatives.

ANY MAC CAN BE A WEB SERVER

The basic requirements for any Macintosh to become a Web site include: System 7, a minimum of 4 megabytes of RAM, a full-fledged connection to the Internet (anything from a SLIP or PPP modem connection all the way up to a T3 line) and WebSTAR, which includes MacTCP software.

"The rule of thumb for setting up your Web site is `if you can surf, you can serve.' Many people don't realize that they already have everything it takes to setup their own Web server by just adding WebSTAR," noted Thompson. "Depending on how busy you expect your Web site to be, you can use anything from a Mac Plus all the way up to a high-end Power PC to run WebSTAR. And it's easy to upgrade to a more powerful processor as your site becomes more popular."

ABOUT STARNINE

StarNine Technologies, Inc., located in Berkeley, CA, is the leading developer of Internet server software and email connectivity products for the Macintosh. StarNine's MailLink product line includes thirteen email gateways connecting CE Software's QuickMail, Microsoft Corp.'s Microsoft Mail for AppleTalk Networks, and Apple Computer, Inc.'s PowerTalk and PowerShare to the Internet and a wide variety of email systems on other platforms. StarNine's WebSTAR (formerly MacHTTP) Web server software is used by individuals, corporations and organizations. StarNine's ListSTAR product line provides Internet-style listservers and email-on-demand systems for use with popular Macintosh LAN-mail systems and a higher-performance SMTP version. StarNine can be reached by calling 510/649-4949 or by sending email to info@starnine.com or via the Web at (URL:http://www.starnine.com/ ).

CONTACT: StarNine Technologies, Inc.

David Thompson, 510/649-4934

david@starnine.com

or

Naomi Pearce, 510/528-0824

naomi@well.com