Brainstorm Releases VB/Link v4.0, First Lotus Notes ActiveX/OCX Controls
for Client/Server and Internet Applications Development

Furthers International Presence with Global Alliance Partners Program

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- April 16, 1996 --

Brainstorm Technology, Inc., the leader in Lotus Notes and workgroup tools,
today released the latest version of its flagship product, VB/Link for
Lotus Notes. The new VB/Link 4.0 is the industry's first Lotus Notes
ActiveX Controls which enable client/server and internet developers to
build compound Notes v3.x or Notes v4.0 applications using Microsoft's OLE
custom control technology (OCX), now known as ActiveX.

With the release of VB/Link 4.0, Brainstorm is announcing the company's
continued international expansion with the Brainstorm Global Alliance
Program, a program designed for select partners commited to marketing and
distributing Lotus Notes third-party products, services and solutions.

VB/Link 4.0 provides custom client/server applications and web pages
instant, rich functionality including Notes security, replication,
rich-text content, forms and views. A new breed of mobile client/server
database and internet applications can be created for commerce, credit
card approvals, sales force automation, help desks and human resources,
taking advantage of Notes sub-components.

"If you take the Notes client user interface and break it up into objects,
you'd have the components of VB/Link," said George Hoffman, Sandoz-Agro
Pharmaceuticals. "VB/Link is the first product to bring objects that can
reproduce Notes views, Notes rich text fields, and Notes forms from within
custom client/server and internet applications."

VB/Link ActiveX Controls are open, cross-platform technology supported by
Internet Explorer 3.0, NCSA's Mosaic 2.2 and Netscape Navigator 2.0, as
well as Active X containers such as Microsoft Visual Basic v4.0 (16- and
32-bit), Visual C++, Visual FoxPro, Access for Windows95, Borland Delphi
2.0, Powersoft's Optima++, Powerbuilder v5.0 and all other ActiveX
Controls container applications available today.

"Since we introduced VB/Link, the industry's first Lotus Notes VBX in 1993,
Brainstorm has seen a tremendous commitment from our customers who require
the most advanced tools and applications for building robust Notes
applications using popular front-end development tools -- Visual Basic,
SQLWindows or PowerBuilder, for example -- that they are familiar with,"
said Rizwan Virk, President and CEO of Brainstorm. "Once again Brainstorm
is in a market-leading position with the release of VB/Link 4.0, bringing
the capability to use Notes ActiveX Controls to all existing client/server
and new internet developers."

First Object-Oriented Notes OCX for 16- and 32-bit Development VB/Link is
the first object oriented development tool for Notes. Other products
provide complicated APIs or DLLs that need to be called for accessing
Notes databases. VB/Link, on the other hand, encapsulates the complexity
in various objects that can be put onto forms and manipulated via
properties and methods, within the development environment of choice.
These objects can be used from within a multitude of development
environments and applications, and can be interchanged and stored in
object repositories.

Applications built on these development platforms can read and write to
Lotus Notes databases directly via the standard OLE custom control
interface. This object architecture drastically reduces the implementation
time as compared to the use of Lotus Notes C API.

The new VB/Link provides full support for all 16 and 32-bit development
environments supporting ActiveX or OCX controls, and is compatible with
all existing Notes 3.x as well as new 16 and 32-bit Notes 4.0
applications.

ONE-STEP VISUAL CONTROLS FOR NOTES RICH-TEXT, VIEWS AND FORMS RENDERING

New in this release, VB/Link 4.0 adds advanced support for "one-step"
visual controls and enhanced data control: NotesData adds Notes
replication, mail, and full-text objects; NotesView allows Notes
developers to build applications that incorporate the same familiar
hierarchical Notes views look-and-feel in one, easy step; Notes rich text
enables Notes developers to access native Notes rich-text data quickly and
easily without any programming.

A key feature of VB/Link 4.0 is support for rendering complete Notes forms
and documents. This allows an entire Notes document, including the form
design, default field values, validation and security to be presented to
the user as it would appear in Notes.

"One of the features that makes Notes unique in the database world is that
every record has a form, and can be presented as a document. SQL databases
can't do that. The document rendering feature of VB/Link lets developers
keep that representation in their client/server application, and build
workflow applications," said Virk.

"Perhaps more importantly with the emergence of internet and intranet
applications, the strengths of the Notes document store and user interface
can be presented directly to all users of popular Web browsers including
Netscape and the Internet Explorer," Virk added.

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

VB/Link 4.0 will be available by early May, directly from Brainstorm, the
Brainstorm Buyers Guide, and through authorized resellers and
international distributors at a U.S. suggested retail price of $795 per
developer with free run-time. International pricing can be obtained
directly through Brainstorm or one of the company's Global Alliance
Partners.

An evaluation version of VB/Link 4.0 will be available free of charge at
Brainstorm's Web site, at http://www.braintech.com. Click to download our
fully functional OCX component for local Notes access.

ABOUT BRAINSTORM TECHNOLOGY, INC.

Founded in 1993, Brainstorm Technology, Inc., is a pioneer in the
development of Lotus Notes and workgroup development tools and
applications. The company provides both off-the-shelf products and a range
of consulting services designed to help companies gain access and
integrate existing corporate technologies with emerging groupware
platforms. The company's award-winning products, VB/Link, Datalink,
OfficeLink and Server AdminPlus are currently used by more than 1,500
organizations in 12 countries.
 
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