Companies take enterprise access on the road through Attachmate AT&T partnership; By combining Attachmate's RLN with the CDPD network from AT&T Wireless Services, mobile users achieve complete, on-demand enterprise access

Business Wire, March 12, 1996

BELLEVUE, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 12, 1996--Attachmate - The Intranet Company(tm) - and AT&T(r) Wireless Services, the nation's largest provider of wireless voice and data communications services, today announced an agreement to jointly market Attachmate's Remote LAN Node(r) (RLN(r)) in conjunction with cellular digital packet data (CDPD) services from the Wireless Data Division of AT&T Wireless Services.

This announcement expands the scope of the companies' existing agreements focused on providing wireless connectivity to mainframes and midrange computers through Attachmate's host connectivity products.

Remote LAN Node is an enterprise-ready information access solution maximized through AT&T Wireless Services. The RLN family of products from Attachmate(r) provides extensions of virtually any LAN environment, and optimizes application performance.

Organizations deploying enterprise remote access solutions today are seeking a broad range of connection options to satisfy various user and departmental requirements. To address the ever-increasing demands for mobile connectivity, AT&T Wireless Services and Attachmate are providing an industrial-strength wireless access to a LAN solution.

This solution allows organizations to provide consistent LAN extensions to remote users, regardless of their connectivity requirements as well as complete interoperability with the other land-based connectivity options supported by RLN.

"As a greater percentage of the workforce becomes mobilized, the need to extend enterprise LAN's and corporate Intranets via wireless connections is quickly becoming a competitive necessity," said Todd Mavis, vice president of Business Development at Attachmate.

"The combination of RLN's complete enterprise connectivity and the total mobility offered by the AT&T Wireless CDPD network gives companies everything they need to mobilize their workforce. As the largest wireless service provider in North America, AT&T Wireless Services delivers an essential service to companies moving towards mobile computing."

Attachmate and AT&T Wireless Services are targeting traveling executives, mobile sales people, and other professionals requiring on-the-spot access to corporate resources -- order entry, credit and billing, inventory systems, etc. Even with standardized land-line access available in many locations, mobile professionals often find themselves without an immediately available phone jack.

Wireless access extends the entire enterprise to remote locations, making immediate customer service a reliable competitive advantage. The mobility of a wireless connection guarantees that salespeople can maintain their competitive edge. Additionally, by enabling salespeople to complete additional sales calls each day, the efficiency of mobile connectivity translates directly into increased productivity and revenues for an organization.

"This agreement between Attachmate and AT&T Wireless follows a trend by communications software and service providers to support a variety of both wired and wireless communications networks to meet the varied needs of the mobile worker," said Ken Dulaney, vice president of Mobile Computing at the Gartner Group.

"For years, organizations have been saying it's too difficult to provide complete access to enterprise LAN information and applications for mobile workers," said Leonard Bargellini, strategic relations manager at AT&T Wireless Services. "Together with Attachmate's leading-edge remote LAN access solutions, we simplified this process and enabled workers to access mission-critical information, regardless of their physical location."

RLN is an enterprise-ready wireless information access solution maximized through AT&T Wireless Services. The RLN family of products provides extensions of virtually any LAN environment, and optimizes application performance. AT&T's Wireless Packet Data Service, based on the CDPD open standard, provides superior versatility, reliability, and security.

With a channel speed of 19.2 Kbits per second, CDPD is well suited for the task of extending the enterprise LAN to mobile users. CDPD stands apart from other standards because it sends messages over the existing cellular network using the TCP/IP networking standard.

Pricing and Availability

This solution is available in North America today by contacting Attachmate at 800/426-6283 or AT&T Wireless Services at 1-800-IMAGINE (800/462-4463).

Attachmate - The Intranet Company

Attachmate is a leading provider of high quality universal information access software and services that help organizations build secure Intranets. The company's object-oriented client, server, authoring tool and management software safely link together enterprise systems, Internet systems and people. These solutions allow desktop and mobile users to transparently access, manage and share any business information inside or outside the organization.

The company leverages its 14 years of corporate expertise in enterprise and Internet technologies by providing comprehensive and knowledgeable customer consulting and support services in more than 30 countries to help organizations build high-performance and secure Intranet client/server systems. The sixth largest PC software company in the world, Attachmate employs over 2,000 people.