General Signal Networks & Sterling Commerce Establish Partnership For Data Warehouse Management

Business Wire, May 1, 1997

SHELTON, CT and DALLAS, TX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 1, 1997-- General Signal Networks, Inc. and Sterling Commerce, Inc. have agreed to jointly market their respective products to reduce the time required to develop, populate, and update large data warehouses.

Under the agreement, organizations will have access to solutions for the time-sensitive, mission-critical movement of large files between mainframes and large scale UNIX servers typically used in decision support applications. The agreement provides for General Signal Networks to become a Sterling Commerce partner and will enhance the CONNECT product solutions provided.

"This agreement demonstrates Sterling Commerce's commitment to address the enterprise data exchange issues organizations face in today's business environment," said Hugh Bursi, product manager at Sterling Commerce. "The combination of Sterling Commerce's CONNECT:Direct(TM) enterprise data exchange products with General Signal Networks' Open Channel 9000 (OC/9000)(TM) high speed, high bandwidth channel-to-channel connectivity system will provide organizations with one of the fastest, most reliable solutions to the problem of reliably moving large volumes of data between host systems and the distributed open platforms used for data warehousing."

The companies commented that in addition to data warehouse applications, their products may be used for Internet and intranet functions and other applications.

"This partnership addresses the need of firms to take data transfer speeds to another level," commented Peter LaPorte, vice president of marketing at General Signal Networks. "CONNECT:Direct and the Open Channel 9000 will simplify the movement of data for the population and updating of data warehouses. It also enables backup of server-based data and files to storage connected to the mainframe--a major goal of data center managers today," added LaPorte.

Sterling Commerce, with its executive offices in Dallas, is a leading, global provider of electronic software products and services that enable businesses to engage in business-to-business electronic communications and transactions. Sterling Commerce has been providing electronic commerce solutions for over 20 years, and has nearly 25,000 customer sites worldwide and 1,300 employees.

General Signal Networks, Inc., whose stock is wholly owned by General Signal Corporation, is the leading provider of matrix switches for wide area networks; channel switches and channel extension products for copper- and ESCON-based mainframes and SCSI- and PCI-based servers; fiber management systems; and performance monitoring and test systems for digital and analog networks. Headquartered in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, General Signal Networks, Inc. has approximately 1000 employees.

General Signal Corporation of Stamford, Connecticut (NYSE:GSX), with 1996 sales of more than $2 billion, is a leading manufacturer of quality products serving customers in the process control, electrical control and industrial technology industries throughout the world. Visit its web site at www.generalsignal.com.

EDITORS NOTE: General Signal Networks news releases and product

information are available on the Internet at

http://www.gsnetworks.com.

Sterling Commerce news releases and product

information are available on the Internet at

http://www.stercomm.com.

CONTACT: Joseph Blumberg

LVA Communications (For GSN)

(860) 739-5598

2025218@mcimail.com

or

Grace Mazar

Sterling Commerce

(972) 868-5335

grace_mazar@stercomm.com