The Company's products are used for enterprise-wide intranet applications by more than 600 corporations worldwide. In addition, over 100 leading software developers have licensed Verity's search engine for a broad spectrum of products and services, such as electronic newswires, document management, groupware, and CD-WEB publishing.

The proliferation of personal computers and enterprise-wide networks and the evolution of the Worldwide Web from an electronic mail backbone to a dynamic information resource have dramatically changed the way information is created, managed and used today. Unfortunately, these developments have also greatly magnified the challenge of locating and accessing information --due to the number of dissimilar data types, incompatible platforms and wide dispersion of data stores.

Verity's sophisticated technology is designed to help people connect with information, elevating search and retrieval from a cumbersome, rudimentary undertaking to a streamlined, robust and highly responsive process that consistently produces the desired results.

Business Strategy

In Verity's early years, the Company focused on developing highly specialized search and filtering solutions for large government agencies and Fortune 100 clients. Although it was successful in addressing this niche market, in 1993 the Company shifted its focus to the fast-growing Internet and corporate intranet marketplace.

Verity reengineered its product line to make search more accessible at the desktop, creating user-friendly tools and applications for individuals, workgroups, departments, and entire enterprises. Verity's products allow users to intuitively move through information, greatly enhance the accuracy of searches, customize applications to meet specific needs, and enable automatic delivery of news and information according to personal criteria.

One of the Company's advantages has been its ability to incorporate information from more than 200 applications and databases --resulting in a single, integrated information resource. This versatility has led to wide acceptance of Verity's products, as evidenced by the accumulation of more than 10 million licensed "seats".

SEARCH'97 Product Family

Unlike today's macro- or document-based search approaches, SEARCH'97 is a next-generation family of tools for deploying searches across the enterprise. SEARCH'97 is the first search application platform that provides the necessary infrastructure and components to create powerful, flexible information-retrieval systems capable of accessing information from the many different types and locations of data within the enterprise. (See "SEARCH'97: A New Personal and Enterprise Application", White Paper from Philippe Courtot, CEO)

Individual search components can easily be combined to extend SEARCH'97's core functionality as required. These components include a browser-based user interface; an Information Server that can be used to index virtually any source of information; an Agent Server for simultaneously managing hundreds of thousands of profile agents that watch information sources or changes in relational databases --according to specific user profiles; advanced search and query enhancements including Query by Example, Natural Language Parsing, and Spelling Error Override; improved information visualization, clustering and summarization for better organization of information; knowledge application tools and other enhanced navigational aids.

SEARCH'97 PERSONAL is designed to make all functionality available through a single user interface. Users will be able to rely on SEARCH'97 PERSONAL to quickly index and locate any information on their local drives, as well as to create queries and search agents and implement searches across an enterprise-wide intranet or the Internet. SEARCH'97 PERSONAL will be supported from within Netscape's web browser, Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Microsoft Exchange.

SEARCH'97 can view files created in over 200 document formats --including HTML, SGML and PDF-- even when the originating application is not available locally. It runs on a wide array of platforms including Windows, Macintosh and leading UNIX processors. SEARCH'97 also supports the Microsoft Exchange platform, allowing users to easily search across their mail, public and private folders or to conduct enterprise or Internet searches.

In addition, Verity will provide a comprehensive Developer's Kit for SEARCH'97 --including its search and indexing engine and Agent Server-- to ease integration of third-party applications.

Distribution Channels and Partnerships

Verity's products are sold through a direct sales force, systems integrators and value-added resellers. Numerous software developers and other partners worldwide have licensed the Verity search engine for third-party applications.

In groupware and document management, for example, partners that bundle our search engine with their software include Adobe, Collabra, Documagix, Documentum, Lotus, PC DOCS, Saros, and Xyvision. Among the Internet tool suppliers and database providers that embed Verity's search engine in their products are Attachmate, Frontier Technologies, Hummingbird, Informix, Mobius, NetManage, Netscape, Object Design, SAP, SCO, Sybase, and Tandem.

Verity's search tools have become a de facto standard for electronic news delivery, used by AT&T WorldNet Services, Dow Jones, Individual Inc., Knight-Ridder New Media, NewsCorp, Time Inc., WavePhore, and Ziff-Davis. In CD-WEB publishing, our search platform is employed by Bay Networks, Cisco Systems, Compaq Computer, the Financial Times, Tandem, HP, and others.

Finally, among the more than 600 corporations that use Verity products for Intranet applications are EDS, Fed Ex, H-P, MCI, and Raytheon, and in the Asia/Pacific region, NEC, Nomura Research Institute, Omron Alphatel, and more.

The Company

Verity, Inc. is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and employs over 250 people around the world. The Company has offices in the United States, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Verity is a publicly-held corporation, trading on the NASDAQ National Stock Market under the symbol VRTY.

For more information, contact Verity at 408-541-1500,