MICROSOFT ANNOUNCES ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS PROGRAM

Combination of Microsoft Visual Tools and Partner Tools to Provide
Corporate Developers Enterprise Client-Server Solutions

SAN FRANCISCO - FEB. 12, 1996 - Today at the Visual Basic" Insiders
Technical Summit (VBits) in San Francisco, to an audience of more than
2,000 developers, Microsoft Corp. announced the Enterprise Development
Partners program, a new component of the company's highly successful
third-party development-tool partnering program aimed at enterprise
developers. Microsoft and the 22 charter members will work together to
provide customers with robust, integrated custom client-server tool
suites.

"As the capabilities of the Microsoft Visual Tools and Windows platforms
have increased, so has the size of applications that corporate developers
are creating with them," said Evan Quinn, research manager for application
development tools at International Data Corp. "In large applications,
capabilities such as complex modeling and testing are becoming
increasingly important. Microsoft has responded by forming this partners
program with the industry's top vendors."

Vendors in the program will receive numerous technical and marketing-
related benefits. Partners will receive access to early alpha releases of
Microsoft software and invitations to technical summits focusing on joint
integration of Microsoft and partner development tools. In addition, the
program will offer co-marketing opportunities for vendors in activities
such as joint advertising, enterprise partner catalogs, case studies and
seminars.

"Customers will gain business benefits such as reduced development time,
higher quality applications and greater reuse through the efforts of the
Enterprise Development Partners program," said Jon Roskill, director of
marketing for Visual Basic at Microsoft. "The program provides the
foundation to expand large corporate development using Microsoft Visual
Tools."

"The tight partnering and integration of Microsoft Visual Tools with the
enterprise tool vendors' products in this program will allow us to create
a standard, integrated development environment for all of our development
teams," said John Stewart, supervisor of application development at
Carnival Cruise Lines. "With these tools in place, project development
will become less dependent on the individual developer and reuse will
certainly increase."

The charter members of the Enterprise Development Partners program are
Applied Information Sciences Inc.; Asymetrix Corp.; Attachmate Corp.;
Cadre Technologies Inc.; CenterView Software; Crescent Division of
Progress Software; Crystal, A Seagate Software Company; Diamond Head
Software Inc.; Digital Equipment Corp.; Intersolv Inc.; LBMS Inc.;
LogicWorks Inc.; Mercury Interactive; Parity Software Development Corp.;
Popkin Software Systems Inc.; Rational Software Corp.; Rockwell Software
Inc.; Select Software Tools; Sheridan Software Systems Inc.; SQA; Sterling
Software; and Wall Data Inc.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in
software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of
products and services for business and personal use, each designed with
the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take
advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.

FOR ONLINE ENTERPRISE PARTNERS PROGRAM SUPPORT INFORMATION:

Visit the Microsoft developer page for information on companies supporting
the Enterprise Development Partners program at
http://www.microsoft.com/devonly.
 
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