MICRO FOCUS UNVEILS NET EXPRESS WITH WEB SERVICES CAPABILITIES

-- New development environment allows companies to deploy COBOL applications as Web services in one simple step --

SUNNYVALE, Calif., and NEWBURY, United Kingdom , June 24, 2002 - Micro Focus International Ltd. (Micro Focus ), a leading global enterprise development company for legacy systems, today announced availability of Web services enhancements for its Net Express® development environment. This is the first release delivered as a result of Micro Focus' alliance with Cape Clear™ Software, a leading provider of Web services technology, and marks a significant step in fulfilling its commitment to maintain COBOL's value with other enterprise technologies like Java, .NET and CORBA. By using Net Express to generate Web services, businesses can reuse existing COBOL assets without requiring modifications that could introduce risk within the computing enterprise. This update provides businesses with new interoperability capabilities and reduces time-to-market for e-business applications.

Micro Focus' Net Express has been integrated with Cape Clear CapeStudio™ 3 to create an enhanced offering for Web services, the first development environment designed to provide COBOL applications with the infrastructure to build and expose Web services. Net Express now gives customers a visual design interface coupled with a sophisticated deployment generator, consolidating the way in which companies expose their COBOL applications as Web services into a simple one-step process.

"While we see a number of enterprises embracing modern technologies like Java, .NET and Web services, the reality remains that the majority of business data still runs on COBOL," said Gary Barnett, research director for analyst firm OVUM. "Solutions like the Net Express-CapeStudio combination allow companies to bridge the gap as they see fit and make COBOL a key part of their modern enterprise application platforms."

Industry analysts estimate that up to 85 percent of the world's business data is written in COBOL and other legacy applications. Businesses requiring high-speed, transaction-based systems to support a large number of users, such as financial institutions, still rely heavily on COBOL applications to run their organizations. Because Web services are language-independent, customers now using Net Express can easily deploy existing COBOL applications as Web services, thus enabling these businesses to leverage their COBOL investment. Net Express now allows businesses to use their existing COBOL assets as Web services, apply established COBOL skills and infrastructure as part of a contemporary integration solution, and create a library of reusable Web services components that support multiple COBOL platforms. Net Express' new enhancements also allow businesses to use COBOL data in composite applications and e-business environments that were previously too costly or time-prohibitive.

"Our partnership with Cape Clear Software illustrates our strategy to keeping COBOL applications relevant in a Web services world," said Ian Archbell, vice president of product management for Micro Focus. "With the addition of Web services capabilities to Net Express, we are demonstrating our ability to execute on this commitment and delivering a tool that allows corporations to maximize the return on their existing COBOL investments while creating new Web services in COBOL."

"Web services are the common denominator between established and emerging technologies and the cornerstone of a new generation of integrated software applications," said David Clarke, co-founder and senior vice president of strategy and business development at Cape Clear Software. "By teaming with an industry leader and COBOL expert to deliver the first development environment designed to convert COBOL applications into Web services, we look forward to helping customers tap into their legacy assets while taking advantage of a new class of highly robust and efficient business processes."

This new update for Net Express is immediately available for existing Net Express users and will be generally available for new customers in early July.

About Micro Focus

Micro Focus is the industry leader in COBOL development solutions spanning traditional maintenance and program understanding to business rule mining, Web-enablement and user-interface transformation. With 70,000 licensed users at more than 7,000 sites around the world, Micro Focus offers unsurpassed breadth of platform support, performance and scalability, and the most comprehensive suite of development and integration environments to help customers succeed in taking full advantage of the power of their legacy systems. Founded in 1976, Micro Focus is a global company that employs more than 450 people worldwide, with principal offices in the United Kingdom and United States . For more information, visit www.microfocus.com.

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Micro Focus and Net Express are registered trademarks of Micro Focus International Ltd. All non-Micro Focus products mentioned in this announcement are property of their respective owners.