Sterling Commerce Positioned in Leader Quadrant in B2B Gateway Providers Magic Quadrant for Second Quarter 2005

Business Wire, April 25, 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Sterling Commerce, one of the world's largest providers of multi-enterprise collaboration software and services, announced today that it is positioned in the leader quadrant in Gartner's B2B Gateway Providers 2Q05 Magic Quadrant(1) (to see the full report click http://www.sterlingcommerce.com). Gartner, Inc.'s Magic Quadrant positions vendors in a particular market segment based on their vision and ability to execute that vision. Leaders are performing well today, have a clear vision of market direction and are actively building competencies to sustain their leadership position in the market.

According to the report, "Vendors in the Leaders quadrant are most likely to have high revenue in this market, high market share and products that are of interest to a wide audience. Further, Gartner estimates "the current B2B gateway market to be approximately $200 million to $250 million, growing conservatively between 5 percent and 8 percent year over year."

"Enterprises are increasing investment in B2B solutions that can extend business value to customers and critical business partners, and we believe the B2B Magic Quadrant provides the first real framework to help these enterprises establish evaluation criteria," said Nolan Rosen, chief marketing officer of Sterling Commerce. "As part of our Multi Enterprise Services Architecture (MESA), Sterling Commerce provides B2B and application integration within an SOA construct so that enterprises can simply and rapidly deploy services externally to their trading communities, reducing the time to value for these companies. GIS 4.0 provides B2B communications and management, translation, enterprise integration, business process management (BPM) and business activity monitoring (BAM) in one comprehensive suite."

According to the Magic Quadrant Criteria for B2B Gateway Providers, 2Q05, by Frank Kenney, principal analyst, Gartner, "The second-quarter 2005 B2B gateway Magic Quadrant rating process involves primary research via technology analysis, product demonstrations, direct client feedback to analysts throughout the previous year, and references supplied by the vendors. The analysis involves weighting all sources of information, with a heavy emphasis on direct feedback from our clients. As a result, many of the individual categories defined in this research have "client reference" criteria factored into the analysis and evaluation. Gartner considers client feedback to be one of the most-critical measures of the potential of a B2B gateway vendor, and this criterion continues to influence positioning."

The horizontal axis of the Magic Quadrant represents the vendor's completeness of vision with respect to the requirements and conditions that characterize the B2B gateway market across the following criteria:

--Trading-Partner Management

--Secure Communications

--Workflow

--Business Activity and Event Management

--Adapter Technologies

--Transformation

--Openness and Standards Compliance

--Quality of Service

The vertical axis rates the vendors on their ability to execute their vision that takes into account the technical expertise, technology assets and product features, and financial and marketing resources the vendor allocates to the development and support of the product, across the following criteria:

--Corporate Viability

--Financial and Management Commitment

--Pricing

--Installations

--Support

--Geographic Reach

--Partnerships

--Professional Services

For more information, please visit the Sterling Commerce website at www.sterlingcommerce.com.

About the Gartner Magic Quadrant

The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted April 5, 2005 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the "Leaders" quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Sterling Commerce

The year 2005 marks 30 years of Sterling Commerce leadership and expertise in extending processes beyond the edge of the enterprise to enable visible business with suppliers, customers, partners and employees. A wholly owned subsidiary of SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC), the company is one of the world's largest providers of multi-enterprise collaboration solutions. With more than 29,000 customers worldwide, Sterling Commerce builds collaborative, multi-enterprise communities for customers in the retail, consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, financial services, healthcare and telecommunications industries. For detailed, up-to-date information about Sterling Commerce and its solutions, visit www.sterlingcommerce.com.