MICROSOFT BACKOFFICE SELECTED BY LEADING SOLUTION DEVELOPERS ACROSS
SALES-FORCE AUTOMATION INDUSTRY

Developers Growing Their Businesses and Delivering Customer Benefits On
Microsoft BackOffice

SAN JOSE, CALIF. - FEB. 19, 1996 - Microsoft Corp. today announced that
several sales-force automation vendors are committed to building product
lines on Microsoft platforms, especially the Windows 95 operating system
and the Microsoft BackOffice family.

With the mobile-computing capabilities inherent in Windows 95 and the
Internet capabilities being built into Microsoft BackOffice, developers
are driving the rush toward Microsoft technologies as the foundation for
sales-force automation (SFA) applications.

Kathleen Pierce Simonsen, worldwide industry manager for sales-force
automation at Microsoft, said that the vendor announcements are evidence
that Microsoft BackOffice, with its seamless integration and Internet
capabilities, is gaining momentum as the platform for the future of SFA.

"The industry now recognizes that Microsoft BackOffice is the premier
platform combining best-of-breed server products, enabling developers to
provide total SFA solutions," Simonsen said.

To assist in those solutions, Microsoft debuted its new sales-force
automation World Wide Web home page today during the DCI Field and Sales
Force Automation Conference and Exposition at the San Jose Conference
Center.

The SFA vendors supporting Microsoft BackOffice include Aurum Software
Inc., Brock International Inc., ONYX Software Corp., SalesKit Software
Corp. and Siebel Systems Inc.

 AURUM SOFTWARE has integrated its popular SalesTrak package with
 Microsoft BackOffice and plans to support the Microsoft Exchange
 Server and Microsoft SQL Server database platforms.

 BROCK INTERNATIONAL recently announced that it will include
 Microsoft-based Internet capabilities in its TakeControl product.

 ONYX SOFTWARE has designed its new ONYX Customer Center software
 exclusively on Microsoft BackOffice.

 SALESKIT SOFTWARE bases its SalesKit OPEN suite of sales information
 management applications on Microsoft Office and Microsoft BackOffice
 platforms.

 SIEBEL SYSTEMS bases its client-side products exclusively on
 Microsoft Windows NT, the networking operating system component
 of Microsoft BackOffice.

Many of the SFA developers are using Microsoft technologies on both the
client side and the server side.

"Windows 95 is the first Windows operating system designed with mobile
computing in mind," Simonsen said. "As such, Windows 95 enables remote
mobile reps to be productive and current on customer information,
regardless of their location. Sales and marketing departments frequently
need to synchronize customer data between remote locations and corporate
headquarters. The Microsoft BackOffice server suite enables the entire
enterprise to securely share that critical customer information
internally.

"Externally, organizations of all sizes are interested in exploiting the
Internet as a communications vehicle for reaching customers directly,"
Simonsen continued. "Right now, we're integrating Internet capabilities
into our products to help our customers take advantage of the next step:
the evolution of commerce via the Internet."

One major vendor supporting Microsoft BackOffice is ONYX Software Corp. of
Bellevue, Wash. ONYX Customer Center, a client-server application that
manages all customer interactions from a single application and interface,
was designed exclusively for the Microsoft BackOffice family. Microsoft
BackOffice also forms the base for a remote version of the application
called ONYX Customer Center-Unplugged, also scheduled to be announced at
the DCI show.

This spring, ONYX plans to release its ONYX Web Wizards product. Using a
Microsoft platform, ONYX Web Wizards will allow ONYX Customer Center users
to capture customer inquiries from the World Wide Web and automatically
incorporate them into their business.

Todd Stevenson, ONYX co-founder and vice president for development, said
the tight integration and robustness of Microsoft BackOffice also supports
rapid applications development, both in initial product development and
for upgrades and expanded functionality. That capability leads to benefits
like those found by one user of ONYX products, OrCad, which reports a 50
percent increase in efficiency across its sales, marketing,
customer-support, accounting and management functions using the Microsoft
BackOffice-based ONYX Customer Center.

Aurum Software of Santa Clara, Calif., delivers a comprehensive SFA
solution via a suite of Microsoft offerings in its Aurum SalesTrak
package. Mary Coleman, president and CEO of Aurum, said the extended
integration with Microsoft addresses an unanswered need in the market.

"Sales-force automation software is uniquely suited for the Microsoft
Windows NT platform due to the impressive price/performance potential,"
Coleman said. "We see upward of 30 percent of our sales funnel filled with
Microsoft BackOffice opportunities."

Coleman also said Aurum has integrated SalesTrak with Microsoft BackOffice
and plans to support Microsoft Exchange Server as well as Microsoft SQL
Server 6.0.

Another market leader, Siebel Systems of Menlo Park, Calif., delivers
enterprisewide client-server sales-automation software solutions. Siebel
runs exclusively on Windows-based clients (Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows
3.1), and Siebel's application server runs exclusively on Windows NT.

"Our customers are very large organizations, most of which run multiple
servers in deployment," said Tom Siebel, president of Siebel Systems.
"Microsoft BackOffice represents a tremendous opportunity for Siebel
Systems to deliver large-scale, global sales-information solutions."

When AlliedSignal Plastics wanted a comprehensive information system for
its field-sales team, it turned to SalesKit Software Corp. of St. Louis,
Mo. SalesKit was able to make optimal use of AlliedSignal's existing
investment in Microsoft Office by using Microsoft-based SalesKit OPEN to
help manage and track key customer, order and product information. OPEN is
a suite of object-oriented client-server automation solutions that provide
remote data access and synchronization.

"Microsoft and SalesKit combine to provide any solution we give our sales
force a seamless upward migration path to take advantage of new releases
of applications or major technological breakthroughs such as Windows 95
and Microsoft Exchange Server," said Greg McLeod, project leader in the
engineered materials sector at AlliedSignal. "By adopting technologies
such as Microsoft's and SalesKit's, we can rely on their applications
taking advantage of emerging technologies for us."

Bob Ingersoll, vice president of marketing for SalesKit, said that access
to vital Internet resources is a must for mobile professionals, "But the
real key is to make the vast resources of the Net accessible and usable
within the context of the customer's work. SalesKit supports services that
enable a salesperson to do a targeted search consistent with the context
of the sales activity. For example, when sales reps view accounts within
SalesKit, they can press the 'targeted search' tool button which, in turn,
launches Internet Explorer, and retrieve information about that account
directly from the Internet." Ingersoll also said that SalesKit would
support Microsoft Internet Information Server.

Another major SFA vendor, Brock International Inc. of Atlanta, recently
announced its Web page and its intention to include integrated Web
solutions free in its TakeControl software in the second half of 1996.
Brock will use Microsoft products to support its online information
repositories, including Windows NT, Microsoft Internet Information Server,
Internet Studio and Microsoft SQL Server.

"We have chosen Microsoft ... because we feel Microsoft will set a
precedent for a significant part of the Internet activity in the future,"
said Richard Brock, president and CEO of Brock International Inc.

Microsoft today also announced its sales-force automation World Wide Web
page. A preview is located at http://www.microsoft.com/industry/sfa. More
information from Microsoft on sales-force automation will be available on
the page in March, providing up-to-date news on products, solutions and
other useful resources for SFA software developers, customers, members of
the press and analysts. The page will feature links to other pages of
interest, including the main Microsoft home page, consistently among the
most visited sites worldwide.

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 more information on the Microsoft SFA home page, please contact Linda
Lowe at (206) 702-5266.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on
Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft home page at
http://www.microsoft.com/corpinfo. To receive Microsoft press releases by
fax, please call (800) 859-5915 in the United States or (201) 333-0314
internationally.
 
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