Data General Delivers Leading Benchmark Performance for Baan ERP; Data General Delivers Best Systems Performance to Date of Baan ERP Running On Windows NT and SQL Server 7

Business Wire, July 7, 1999

WESTBORO, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 7, 1999--

Data General Corporation today announced that it achieved the highest ever recorded benchmark result of Baan ERP on SQL Server 7. The results, available in the May 1999 edition of the Baan Series Sizing Guide, demonstrate that Data General's AViiON enterprise servers deliver superior performance on both 2-way and 4-way systems in a 2-tiered processing environment. The results were an impressive 381 Baan Reference Users (BRUs) on a 2-way system and 619 BRUs on a 4-way system. BRUs are the Baan Company method of measuring capacity utilization based on a pre-defined set of loads. The capacity required by real users is then measured in BRUs.

The AViiON servers also excelled in BRUs that could be supported on an application server in a three-tiered environment. The benchmark was achieved on Data General's AViiON AV3700R class enterprise servers and CLARiiON FC5703 full Fibre Channel storage system, running the Windows NT 4.0 operating system, a SQL 7 database and Baan ERP 5.0.

"This benchmark shows impressive scalability for Baan ERP using an AViiON server and SQL Server 7 platform," said Linda Mentzer, vice president of AViiON marketing at Data General. "This outstanding result demonstrates that the most demanding and mission-critical needs of Baan customers can be met by AViiON servers and CLARiiON full fibre storage solutions running Windows NT and SQL Server 7. We look forward to further developing our relationship with Baan to more effectively meet the mission-critical computing needs of Baan customers."

"Baan customers are the beneficiaries of the outstanding performance and scalability from Baan ERP and SQL 7 running on AViiON servers," said Mark Hamilton, senior vice president, global marketing, Baan Company. "The synergy between both products is a result of Baan and Data General's ongoing investment to provide customers with the foundations for the next generation of business tools. Scalability is a key concern for companies that find themselves competing in the new world of the internet economy, and a Baan solution running on Data General servers fulfills the scalability requirement for our joint customers."

"Our customers are requiring high availability, superior performance, and scalability," said Douglas Leland, SQL Server group program manager, Microsoft Corporation. "Combined with Data General's 99.9% uptime guarantee offering for SQL Server 7.0, this result demonstrates conclusively that Baan ERP, SQL 7, and Data General's AViiON server solutions can satisfy the requirements of the most demanding processing environments."

The Benchmark Test

The configurations used in the Data General benchmark test included the following:

-- AV 3700R servers which included two or four Pentium III 500 MHz processors, with various L2 cache sizes (512KB, 1MB and 2MB configurations).

-- Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Enterprise Edition with SP4

-- Baan ERP 5.0 using Baan Benchmark Kit 3.2

-- Microsoft SQL Server 7.0

-- Mercury Interactive's LoadRunner 5.1 load controller

-- High availability full-fibre CLARiiON FC5703 with 2 storage processors each with 512 MB memory and 20-18GB RPM disks

More information regarding this standard application benchmark is available on request from Baan or Data General Corporation.

For more information on Data General's AViiON Windows NT enterprise servers and CLARiiON full fibre channel storage solutions integrated with Baan ERP for Windows NT please call 1-800-DATAGEN or visit their Web site at www.dg.com.

About Data General

Data General Corporation (NYSE:DGN), based in Westboro, Massachusetts, is a major supplier of storage and enterprise computing solutions for customers worldwide. The company's products include CLARiiON Fibre Channel storage systems, high-end NT and UNIX AViiON servers, and related software and services. The company reported fiscal 1998 revenues of $1.5 billion. Additional information on the company, its products, and services is available on the Internet at www.dg.com.

AViiON, and CLARiiON are registered trademarks of Data General Corporation. All other brand names and product names referenced in this press release may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.