NOTE: This is a draft of BANYAN's Press Release. Please exercise care before April 26, and do not distribute externally or to unauthorized individuals. BANYAN'S PRESS RELEASE ON BANYAN LETTERHEAD FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Siobhan Carroll Banyan Systems (508)898-1000 Joann Anderson Copithorne & Bellows (617)252-0606 Kelly Emo Hewlett Packard (408)447-5334 BANYAN SYSTEMS AND HEWLETT PACKARD ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC RELATIONSHIP Banyan and Hewlett Packard to Port VINES to HP 9000 Platforms SAN FRANCISCO, CA., April 26, 1993 - At the Association of Banyan Users International, held here, Banyan Systems and Hewlett Packard announced today a strategic relationship that involves technology sharing, joint product development, network attached printer support, technical support alliances and joint marketing. An important aspect of the relationship will be the development of new products to integrate Banyan's enterprise network services with Hewlett Packard's HP-UX and PA-RISC computing platform and to provide innovative printing solutions for Banyan customers using HP printers. According to James D'Arezzo, Banyan Vice President - Marketing, "Banyan's goal is to create open environments in which enterprise network services are available to all users, regardless of platform or physical location. HP's leadership in RISC-based scalable UNIX platforms, coupled with a broad range of applications and database solutions, makes the company's offerings a desirable choice for Banyan's customers." Banyan's and HP's commitment to provide applications and network services across heteroeneous enterprise-wide networks creates a common technical direction for future networking solutions. This strategic relationship will provide Banyan and HP customers with solutions to integrate and easily manage the complete range of Banyan VINES network services and HP products into enterprise information systems. To broaden the number of supported platforms, Banyan will continue creating similar alliances with other industry leaders throughout this year. Banyan's network services on HP-UX will be Banyan's first port to a RISC platform. Products resulting from these efforts will be available before the end of 1993. As part of the companies' strategic relationship, Banyan has been designated an HP Premier Solutions Partner, the highest level in HP's Software Supplier program. This ensures that Banyan will receive a strong degree of HP collaboration to jointly market Banyan products. "The result of this cooperative effort will be client-server solutions based upon HP's PA-RISC platform and Banyan VINES enterprise network services," said HP's Bernard Guidon, General Manager of General Systems Division. "This is an important step toward providing end users with the distributed-computing solutions they need. These jointly developed products will help fulfill our customer's needs for an open communications environment that provides unparallel ease of use and administration." Leading Database Vendors Support Relationship "Oracle has had long standing partnerships with both HP and Banyan," said Sean Bandarkar, Oracle Corporation's Director of Marketing, HP Division. "This announcement gives our mutual customers more options for powerful solutions to their enterprise network needs." "Sybase is committed to providing open client-server solutions than span the enterprise," commented Stu Schuster, Vice President - Marketing, SYBASE. "We're very pleased that SYBASE/HP customers will now have the advantage of Banyan's enterprise network services." Network Management Integration Banyan and HP's Network Management Division are collaborating to ensure that all of Banyan's support for HP products can be managed from HP's Open View Windows and UNIX management software. Customers using Open View will be able to use Banyan's enterprise network management services to locate and manage other VINES servers on the network. Customers will gain integrated network management across their heterogeneous computing environments. The two companies will cooperate to broaden the manageability of Banyan and HP environments using HP's and Banyan's Network Management Technology. "Continental Grain runs its international business on Banyan's enterprise network services and is making a strategic move to client/server computing using HP's PA-RISC engines," said Hilly Fuchs, Assistant Vice President, Continental Grain Company. "The integration of Banyan's enterprise network services with HP-UX creates a strategic advantage for our business by tapping the broad scalability, outstanding performance and ease of use and management of the resulting distributed computing platform. Continental Grain is one of the founding members of the Network Applications Consortium which is working with vendors to integrate their products with VINES enterprise services." Expanded Relationship With HP Printer Division Banyan also announced plans today to provide support for network attached printers. Banyan will offer a network adapter that will work with HP's high-performance LAN-ready printers which support HP's MIO interface. The network adapters implement the VINES routing protocols which allow printers to be physically located anywhere in the network. The Banyan Remote MIO printer adapter supports Ethernet and Token Ring networks and is complemented by a line of external printer adapters that allow non-network ready printers to be directly attached to the LAN (see Network Printer Support Release). Technical Support Alliances As part of the broadened relationship between HP and Banyan, the two companies have signed several worldwide Technical Support Alliances. These TSA's will ensure that customers using products from both companies in their networks will be able to receive technical support from either company. One such TSA focuses on support for customers running Banyan services in an HP environment. Another TSA includes a working agreement with HP's printer division to handle support requests across all product lines as well as an agreement to support certified platforms from the PC division running VINES. The European TSA allows for the two companies to collaborate closely by, among other things, twice yearly intensive training in each others products. Certification Programs Hewlett Packard has been a participant in Banyan's Platorm Certification Program since 1990. Since joining, HP has certified over 34 configurations. HP was the first vendor to certify a SCSI disk/tape subsystem independent of the Platform Certification Program. Currently, Banyan and HP are working on other programs which will enhance the product offerings of both companies. Banyan recently announced support for HP's 100mbs Ethernet proposal and plans to continue working closely with HP to ensure that VINES is compatible with HP's proposal should it become a standard. Industry Reaction Positive "At Saros, we have built our product line around a philosophy and architecture based on openness and interoperability," said Wayne Carpenter, President and CEO, Saros Corporation. "We think the Banyan/Hewlett Packard relationship is a strong signal that heterogeneous networks are becoming increasingly integrated. This is what customers want and need to meet the demands they face as they link thousands of PC users together across the enterprise. Banyan and HP are answering this challenge, providing an integrated platform that supports a wider variety of enterprise networking applications in more native environments." John Howman, President - Allied Computer Group said, "At Allied Computer Group we have a number of customers who are running UNIX systems and who would greatly benefit from the services that Banyan provides. This relationship between Banyan and HP will simplify the lives of customers already running VINES on an Intel platform with UNIX systems. They will now have the option of eliminating one server and simplifying their environments. We enthusiastically support this relationship between Banyan and HP." According to Sietse Brouwer, IS Manager, Dutch Rail Division of Infrastructure, "Within the decentraalized Infrastructure Division of Dutch Rail we are funding our business applications on a country-wide Banyan WAN comprising eighty servers. We are very pleased with the Banyan HP alliance which will provide us with high performance database servers and will enable us to further integrate CAD applications with our business applications. All of this while retaining the flexibility and manageability of VINES."