Versata Appoints William Smartt to Board of Directors and Chairman of Audit Committee; Former DHL and Ingres CFO Brings 35 Years of Industry Experience to Role

Business Wire, Feb 18, 2003

Business Editors

OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 18, 2003

Versata, Inc. (Nasdaq: VATA), a provider of software and services that automate the business logic and processes that power enterprise applications, today announced it is strengthening its board with the appointment of William Smartt, former CFO of DHL Worldwide Express and Ingres, to director and Chairman of Versata's audit committee.

Smartt, 60, brings to Versata over 35 years of industry experience. For over 9 years, he held strategic positions as executive vice president, chief financial officer and chief administrative officer at DHL Airways, the US component of DHL Worldwide Express, representing 30% of DHL's $6 billion in annual revenue, 60,000 customers, offices in 200 countries and over one million customers. Prior to DHL, Smartt served as CFO, treasurer, and senior vice president of finance and administration for Ingres Corporation, a relational data base entrepreneurial start-up which rapidly grew and became a leading software company with annual revenues approaching $200 Million. Mr. Smartt has also held financial positions at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Fairchild SemiConductor.

"Bill possesses a wealth of fiscal knowledge, business savvy and high ethical standards. His deep experience in the financial and operational management of such high caliber companies will make him a valuable addition to our board," said Eugene Wong, CEO, Versata. "We look forward to Bill's contributions to the board and his guidance as the Chairman of the audit committee."

Mr. Smartt is a CPA and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of California, Berekley.

About Versata

For IT shops who are struggling to reduce costs and whose developers are challenged with Java coding demands, Versata provides an application server extension that uses declarative business logic as a more productive way to do transaction processing and business process management. Much like a relational database manages business data, Versata manages business logic in the Versata Logic Server - at a higher level of abstraction, utilizing a server for execution and management. Unlike traditional hand-coding approaches, Versata enables developers to maximize their time by allowing them to focus on rules and processes of an application, rather than clerical details. Versata's declarative business logic approach enables IT to create and change applications faster, lower development and maintenance costs, and reduce application backlogs. Versata-built applications are constructed from an organization's core business rules and run in J2EE application servers like IBM WebSphere and BEA WebLogic.

Versata Global 2000 customers include American Management Systems, British Telecommunications, Federal Home Loan Bank, France Telecom, and JPMorganChase & Co. For more information, please visit www.versata.com or call (800) 984-7638.

Except for historical information contained herein, the statements contained in this press release that relate to Versata, Inc. including statements regarding its expected future financial results, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially, including the company's ability to recruit and retain key personnel, the maintenance of its existing relationships with key alliance partners, its ability to continue to develop new and enhanced products and services, competition, market acceptance and other risks described from time to time in Versata's SEC reports, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended October 31, 2002. If any of these risks or uncertainties materializes, Versata's results could differ materially from Versata's expectations in these statements. Versata disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.