Attachmate Announces Extensive Development and Marketing Efforts with Microsoft for ActiveX

Business Wire, June 14, 1996

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 13, 1996--Attachmate(r) today announced they will adopt Microsoft(r) Internet Explorer 3.0 as their preferred Web browser and will develop ActiveX(tm) Controls that add rich new features for users of ActiveX-supported browsers.

As part of the agreement, Attachmate will embed Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0 in its EXTRA!(r) Personal Client line of host access products, allowing users to access the Internet with the same software they currently use to access multiple mainframe and mid-range host computers.

Support for Microsoft's Internet Explorer complements Attachmate's solution-oriented strategy, providing users with maximum flexibility in accessing data across the Intranet. Attachmate also pledged support for enhancement of its many leading-edge host and Intranet technologies.

Such support will provide unique new ActiveX functionality such as direct host access to users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0, while complementing Attachmate's ActiveX-supported Emissary line of work-centric offerings.

Attachmate unveiled plans to begin marketing and support for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0 in its EXTRA! Personal Client software, currently in use by more than 10 million users worldwide. Attachmate will also be adding Microsoft's Internet Explorer to many of its other products over the next several months; details of those plans will be disclosed at a later date.

Once Microsoft's Internet Explorer is added, corporate customers of EXTRA! Personal Client who purchase annual SUPPORTWARE!(tm) agreements from Attachmate will begin receiving industry-leading technical assistance.

"We are very excited about Attachmate's commitment to ActiveX and that they have chosen Microsoft's Internet Explorer as their preferred Web browser," said Brad Chase, general manager in the Internet Platform and Tools Division at Microsoft Corp.

"With Attachmate's reputation as an industry-leader in host-access software, its contributions to the ActiveX platform will be of great interest to corporate users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer and developers will have a rich new set of functionality to add to their Web sites."

Later this year, Attachmate will also announce ActiveX Controls for mainframe, AS/400, Digital, HP, Unisys and UNIX host access that can be run in Microsoft's Internet Explorer or other ActiveX- supported clients, such as Attachmate's Emissary. These controls, all based on Attachmate's industry-leading EXTRA! technology, will enable users to directly access host-based data seamlessly.

Other ActiveX Controls under development include those provided in Emissary, such as WYSIWYG HTML document creation. This control supports real-time server-based document authoring and extensive drag-and-drop support from Microsoft applications. For example, HTML tables can be created simply by dragging table contents from Microsoft Excel and dropping them on the control.

"This agreement will give our customers access to the most exciting content on the Internet through Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0," said Matt Highsmith, vice president of Corporate Marketing and Strategy at Attachmate.

"At the same time, it allows us to take Attachmate's host access and Internet technology expertise in Telenet host systems, remote file access, Internet mail, Internet news and HTML editing and deliver it, in the form of ActiveX Controls, to a much wider audience. We see development of ActiveX Controls as a tremendous business opportunity for Attachmate, as customers will receive a high degree of flexibility in choices and superior functionality."

"We are very excited about providing support for ActiveX," said Bob Lawton, vice president and general manager of Attachmate's Internet Products Group. "Attachmate's object-oriented Emissary software provides unique state-of-the-art functionality using COM and OLE standards.

"Support of ActiveX not only allows Attachmate to provide many of Emissary's unique objects and features to Internet Explorer users, but will significantly enhance Attachmate's work-centric 32-bit client offerings, such as Emissary. We believe that this focus with Microsoft on client object extensibility is critical to delivering more powerful and flexible solutions."

This extensive development and marketing effort for Microsoft's Internet Explorer and ActiveX represents a natural extension of the Microsoft-Attachmate Enterprise Alliance announced earlier this week, which includes numerous product, support, consulting, channel and marketing initiatives for desktop-to-host and Web-to-host solutions.

Attachmate

Attachmate is a leading supplier of universal information access software and services to major corporations, large organizations and government agencies worldwide. The company's object-oriented client, server, authoring tool, management software, and hardware safely `extend' Intranets by linking host systems, Internet systems and workgroups.

Attachmate leverages its fourteen years of corporate expertise in enterprise and Internet technologies by providing comprehensive and knowledgeable customer consulting and support services in more than thirty countries around the world. Attachmate is the largest privately owned software company in the world and employs over 2,000 people. -0-