Press Contacts:
  Mark Williams                               Brooke Cohan
  TakeFive Software, Inc.                     Stirling & Cohan
  (408) 777-1440                              (415) 513-0973

TakeFive Software Announces Major New Version (2.0) of its UNIX C and C++ Development Environment

SNiFF+ 2.0 Extends Large Scale Development With New Management and Comprehension Features

CUPERTINO, California -- February 13, 1995 -- TakeFive Software, Inc. today announced SNiFF+ 2.0 -- a new suite of software development tools based on SNiFF+, its flagship mix-and-match, object-oriented development environment for large scale UNIX C and C++ projects. SNiFF+ 2.0 greatly extends the core programming power of the original SNiFF+ with a rich new set of building, project management, and comprehension tools. The company also intends to enter a license agreement with Taligent, Inc. for rights to bundle SNiFF+ 2.0 with the upcoming beta release of the CommonPoint(tm) application system.

"Developing software is a multi-faceted process requiring outstanding tools and flexibility throughout," explained Christian Kleinferchner, president and CEO of TakeFive Software. "With SNiFF+ 2.0 we meet both of those needs. We offer an industrial strength suite of development tools that fulfills all major elements of a developers job, while allowing mix-and-match flexibility to serve personal preferences for platform, core tools and extension products."

OO Development Environment And More

SNiFF+ 2.0 is a complete suite of development modules for large scale UNIX C and C++ projects. The core development environment is the only product of its kind that allows programmers to mix and match any leading UNIX development platform, compiler, debugger and editing tool for fast, flexible and scalable software development.

SNiFF+ 2.0 provides even more mix and match options with an open interface for any third party version control system including ClearCase and CVS. In addition, SNiFF+ 2.0 is now available on Silicon Graphics UNIX systems, SCO Open Desktop, Novell UNIXWare, as well as Sun, IBM, HP and DEC platforms.

To provide a more comprehensive development solution, TakeFive has added several new project management, code comprehension, analyzing, and reverse engineering tools which aid the developer in understanding the various relationships of their code. With SNiFF+ 2.0, developers can quickly make sense of complete or partial code written in C or C++ and then use that information to create faster and higher-quality software.

In addition, SNiFF+ 2.0 is the first software development suite to include a documentation builder, supporting rapid and iterative development of documentation as code is written or modified. This important feature saves the programmer time and energy by integrating the documentation process into the overall development effort and maintains consistency between documentation and code changes as they occur.

Managing software projects of any size is another area TakeFive has tackled with SNiFF+ 2.0. New management features give developers easy-to-use tools to track the progress of a development project and work more efficiently in parallel with others. The new development suite allows work done by all team members to be shared transparently, and without duplication, in private and shared workspaces. This way of working improves teamwork, speeds up the overall software development project, and saves each individual valuable time and disk space.

Rapid Development: More Than One Million Lines Of Code

SNiFF+ 2.0 is the only UNIX C and C++ software development product that can scale from small applications to millions of lines of code. Furthermore, TakeFive's technology provides this industrial strength capability with a smaller footprint, as the SNiFF+ 2.0 data repository scales linearly with code size, not exponentially like most other development products. This is made possible due to TakeFive's groundbreaking "fuzzy parser" technology. Unlike traditional parsers that laboriously parse code through compilation, the "fuzzy parser" is a new, blazingly fast approach to extracting information from complete, incomplete or uncompilable source code.

Enhanced Tool Integration Framework

TakeFive's new version of SNiFF+ lets developers integrate popular third party products -- such as test tools like Pure's Purify, and CASE tools like IDE's Software through Pictures -- via an externally accessible programming interface. A SNiFF+ 2.0 subsystem provides two-directional control integration between SNiFF+ 2.0. and its external tools.

Taligent, Ericsson Among Growing User Base

SNiFF+ has already been selected by dozens of major corporations in Europe and North America, including Ericsson, Taligent®, Inc., AT&T, Bell Northern Research, Acuson and Siemens. In addition to using TakeFive's products for internal development projects, Taligent intends to license SNiFF+ 2.0 to bundle as part of its developer tool kit in support of its upcoming beta release of the CommonPoint application system.

Pricing and Availability

SNiFF+ 2.0 is available immediately. In North America the product is sold direct through TakeFive Software, Inc. (Cupertino, California), and in Europe directly from TakeFive Software GmbH (Salzburg, Austria). The product will also be available worldwide through selected value-added resellers and distributors. SNiFF+ 2.0 runs on standard UNIX hardware platforms from Sun, IBM, HP, DEC, and Silicon Graphics, and on Novell UNIXWare and SCO Open Desktop.

In the United States SNiFF+ 2.0 is priced at $2990 for a single floating license. TakeFive Software offers special programs for educational and research institutions, and volume discounts are available.