From: Darren_Smith@NeXT.COM (Darren Smith)
Subject: CONEXTIONS SHIPS ADVANCED TOOL FOR RE-ENGINEERING IBM LEGACY SYSTEMS
Date: 25 Jun 1994 13:53:00 -0400

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Scott G. Opitz
         508-689-3570


CONEXTIONS SHIPS ADVANCED TOOL FOR RE-ENGINEERING IBM LEGACY
SYSTEMS

SAN FRANCISCO, June 20, 1994 -- Conextions, Inc. today announced
the shipment of their 3270Builder Workbench, a powerful
development tool for re-engineering IBM legacy systems with
NEXTSTEP.  Included in the announcement was the introduction of a
comprehensive training and support program designed to assist
corporate customers with re-engineering their legacy systems and
mission critical application development.

 *3270Builder's innovative approach to re-engineering IBM legacy
systems makes it a critical tool for NeXT's corporate customers
with existing mainframe resources,: said Warren Weiss, vice
president of worldwide sales and services at NeXT Computer, Inc.
*With 3270Builder, developers with little or no mainframe
knowledge can integrate IBM legacy data with their mission
critical custom applications in a fraction of the time it would
take on non-NEXTSTEP platforms.:

3270Builder automatically creates a model of a legacy mainframe
application by transparently monitoring a user's interaction with
mainframe screens.  This model can then be easily accessed via
NEXTSTEP's Database Kit and Interface Builder as if the mainframe
were a database server.  An application is built by dragging and
dropping an attribute object (corresponding to a mainframe data
field) into a new GUI.  These data objects are also available
programmatically from the NEXTSTEP development environment.

"3270Builder gives a big boost to our process of re-engineering
legacy systems," said Mike Adelson, team leader for Chrysler
Financial Corporation. "It provides immediate productivity gains
and greatly reduces the effort required to migrate mission
critical applications from the mainframe to the Client-Server
environment.  Our MIS staff was very impressed with this
technology and we are going to use it in our MIS re-engineering
process."

By treating a legacy application as a database, a re-engineering
project can now be managed in three phases.  Initially, a
developer can quickly create GUI front-ends for existing legacy
applications resulting in an immediate increase in user
productivity.  In the second phase, a new Client-Server solution
using the same front-end can support concurrent links to dual data
repositories to ensure smooth transition and full data integrity.
Finally, when the new Client-Server system reaches maturity the
link to the legacy system can be terminated with no interruption
to the user work environment.

 *The 3270Builder technology opens a new door to the corporate
glass house by offering easy access to legacy mainframe data,:
said Ed Kodinsky, president and CEO of Conextions, Inc.  *It
provides an MIS re-engineering team with a major productivity
increase and allows them to develop and test their new solutions
with immediate end-user feedback.  This evolutionary approach
reduces many of the risk factors associated with re-engineering by
getting end-users involved early in the project and thereby
smoothing the migration path at all points along the way.:

Conextions also announced that 3270Builder will support NeXT's
Enterprise Objects Framework (EOF) when it is released later this
year.  With the EOF technology, 3270Builder will further enhance
the process of re-engineering legacy IBM systems by creating an
object structure of the current information system and allowing
OOP/OOD techniques to be used for legacy data access and
integration.

3270Builder is available immediately and complemented by a variety
of mentorship, training and other support services to aid
corporate customers in their re-engineering efforts.  In a
separate release, Conextions also announced the shipment of
enhanced versions of its 3270Vision and 5250Vision products, which
connect NEXTSTEP-based computers to IBM mainframe and AS/400
midrange computers, respectively.

Conextions, Inc. of North Andover, Mass. is exclusively focused on
developing and marketing connectivity products and application
development tools for the NEXTSTEP environment.  For more
information about Conextions' products, please contact Scott Opitz
at (508) 689-3570.


Conextions, the Conextions logo, 3270Vision, 5250Vision and
3270Builder are trademarks of Conextions, Inc.  IBM is a
registered trademark of International Business Machines
Corporation.  NeXT, NEXTSTEP, Interface Builder, ObjectWare and
Database Kit are registered trademarks and Enterprise Objects is a
trademark of NeXT Computer, Inc.