Newest Release of Marimba's Desktop/Mobile Management Products to Further Automate Software Change Management Process

Business Wire, April 15, 2002

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 15, 2002

Next Generation Web-centric Architecture to Deliver Advanced Scheduling and Reporting Capabilities that Ease Deployment and Reduce

Costs of Managing Desktop and Mobile Systems

Marimba, Inc. (Nasdaq:MRBA), the Software Change Management Company, today announced a series of major advancements in software automation that ease implementation and further help reduce costs associated with managing software on desktop and mobile systems for Global 2000 and Fortune 500 companies. This newest release of Marimba's Desktop/Mobile Management product family will provide companies with a next generation Web-centric architecture, advanced scheduling, and near real-time reporting capabilities.

Release highlights:

-- Flexible policy management capabilities -- planned to be released in Q2 2002
-- enable targeted scheduling to pre-determine how and when software
applications and updates are distributed, installed, repaired and removed.

-- A browser-based reporting tool called Report Center -- the first of its kind
among desktop management solutions -- provides a management portal with
built-in reports that correlate application deployment logs with inventory
information. Report Center provides helpdesk, system administrators, and asset
management personnel with near real-time status on software deployments across
the extended enterprise.

-- Infrastructure enhancements that leverage a Web-centric J2EE-based
architecture to simplify the installation, configuration, and management of
Marimba's change management products. Marimba's standards-based, J2EE
implementation facilitates integration with existing third-party management
tools and provides the foundation for supporting next-generation Web services.

"Managing software distribution projects poses a significant challenge for companies with thousands of employees, and hundreds of applications on different platforms," said Ronni Colville, research director at Gartner, Inc. "Organizations in increasing numbers are turning to vendors who can automate business processes for software deployment activities and provide reporting mechanisms to track the outcome of such activities."

"This new software release is a major milestone in Marimba's product roadmap," said Rich Wyckoff, president and CEO of Marimba. "Our Web-centric, standards-based architecture allows us to differentiate ourselves from the competition in the areas of ease of use, ease of deployment, and integration with existing IT assets. The reporting and scheduling capabilities will continue to help enterprises further automate the software management and administration process to reduce their cost of ownership and improve quality of service."

New Desktop Management Capabilities Address Software Administrative Pain Points

New Policy Management and Scheduling Capabilities -- implement processes that address business requirements and essentially provide a blueprint for desktop and mobile management activities. In addition to providing tighter control over software installation, repair and removal processes, Marimba's new scheduling function will allow organizations to assemble a policy to control when content or applications are distributed and when they are activated. This is especially useful for regulated industries such as insurance or telecommunications, and for companies that deal with complex, time-sensitive campaigns or disclosure issues.

Advanced Web-based Reporting -- details hardware, software, and systems configurations, and provides up-to-the-minute status on software deployments, software update progress reports, license compliance updates, and Microsoft Windows 2000/XP migration planning and status. Report Center gives systems administrators a set of pre-defined, browser-based reports that can automatically correlate log data with inventory data from desktops, laptops, and servers throughout distributed enterprises. Administrators can also modify these out-of-the box formats or choose to create their own reports. This provides IT departments with powerful troubleshooting and analysis capabilities by identifying in near real-time which deployments have failed, and why they have failed for a specific set of machines, users and/or applications. Any problems that arise can be quickly addressed with remote management tools, self-healing, or rollback.

Next Generation Web-centric Architecture -- Marimba's open standards, Web-centric architecture (first released in 1997) has been enhanced with J2EE technologies, including JSP and XML. The second-generation architecture provides customers with a browser-based, management portal that makes it easier for systems administrators to install, configure, and manage software distributions. Marimba's support for J2EE-based technology facilitates integration with current and future third-party products including Web services management tools.

Pricing and Availability

Report Center -- a new component of Marimba's technology core and Inventory module -- is available immediately. The new enhancements to Marimba's Subscription module are planned to be released in Q2 2002. Customers with existing maintenance agreements covering the release will receive it at no additional charge. Marimba's Desktop/Mobile Management product family continues to support Windows NT, Windows 2000/XP, HP, Mac, Solaris, Linux, and AIX platforms. For additional information on all of Marimba's products, please contact Marimba sales via phone at 888/800-5444, or via email at orders@marimba.com.