MENLO PARK, CA - December 10, 1996 - Versant Object Technology (NASDAQ: VSNT) and GENUITY Inc. today announced a strategic relationship to allow companies to realize the promise of electronic commerce via the Internet and corporate intranets. GENUITY, a Bechtel company, intends to license the Versant Web Propagation Framework for their GENUITY replication product to deliver the performance, availability and scalability required for true Web commerce. The two companies are developing an intelligent replication facility that will be a key differentiator for the world class GENUITY Internet backbone also announced today.

"In order for electronic commerce to truly be realized, the Internet and intranets must evolve to enable organizations to transact business with instantaneous and reliable responses," said T. Geir Ramleth, president and CEO of GENUITY. "Ultimately, it will be necessary for Internet users to have the same comfort level with regards to reliability and security that the telephone provides today. With our Versant-enabled intelligent replication solution, GENUITY will be able to improve our high-quality services."

While it is widely accepted that Internet-based electronic commerce will be a competitive model for businesses worldwide, Internet limitations such as poor reliability, lack of scalability and performance problems inhibit the widespread adoption of electronic commerce applications today. With this announcement, GENUITY plans to deliver a solution that directly addresses each of those limitations using Versant's product technology. The Versant-enabled GENUITY replication product is designed to allow companies to realize decreased costs of sales and increase their ability to respond to customers, prospects and suppliers almost instantaneously.

"Versant continues to show that object databases can be applied in a range of applications much broader than merely traditional content management," said David Banks, president of Versant. "GENUITY has put the Versant framework to the test of improving performance and enabling real world transactions on the Internet. Versant's database and propagation capabilities will play a fundamental role in allowing customers to realize the full benefits of the GENUITY network."

Performance, Scalability and Availability - The Versant Web Propagation Framework

Versant's Web Propagation Framework is specifically designed to improve the performance, scalability and high availability of highly trafficked Web sites. GENUITY delivers the best possible performance by intelligently routing users to the nearest mirror site with the greatest available bandwidth. The Versant Web Propagation Framework, embedded into GENUITY's replication extension, can automatically propagate new or updated Web content from a Website to a virtually unlimited number of replicated, or mirror, sites. GENUITY will use the Versant framework to ensure that all mirror sites are updated at exactly the same time, guaranteeing that the users experience will be identical regardless of the mirror site being accessed. Scalability is realized by the combination of Versant's propagation server and GENUITY's high-bandwidth network, which allow new mirror sites to be brought online quickly and easily as capacity limits are reached.

Finally, the Versant-enabled GENUITY solution offers high availability by directly addressing the limitations of single point of entry and single point of failure. For organizations with heavily trafficked Websites or intranet applications, the traditional single point of entry for users visiting a site can create a tremendous network bottleneck. Also a significant limitation, operation of only a single site results in a single point of failure. GENUITY alleviates both network congestion and network failures by transparently redirecting users to mirror sites, which are automatically synchronized by the Versant Web Propagation Framework.

"GENUITY performed an extensive search to determine which database and propagation technology was the most suitable to pair with our premier networking and service offerings," said Ramleth. "After reviewing all of the alternatives, Versant was chosen based on its advanced object architecture and its experience in building mission-critical applications for the telecommunications industry. With this combination, Versant will play a key role in supporting those organizations implementing custom electronic commerce applications based on the GENUITY replication product."

The GENUITY replication product will be available in Q1'97. The Versant Web Propagation Framework is only available to customers through Versant's Professional Services Organization. For additional information on the jointly developed GENUITY/Versant solution, or to download a product and market backgrounder on the solution, connect to either company's Website at www.versant.com or www.genuity.com.

About GENUITY, Inc.

GENUITY, a subsidiary of the privately held Bechtel organization, provides integrated, high-speed Internet solutions for medium-to-large sized organizations in business, government, and higher education. For nearly 100 years, Bechtel has provided engineering, construction, and related management services to customers in some 140 nations on all seven continents. GENUITY was formed in 1996 and offers Internet connection, data center and integration services. With headquarters in San Francisco, GENUITY also has data centers established in New York, Washington, D.C., London, Chicago, San Jose, Los Angeles and Phoenix. Customers include C/net, CMP, and MCA/Universal.

GENUITY is located at 50 Fremont Street, Suite 1120, San Francisco, CA 94105, 415/957-5350, Fax 415-957-5330; www.genuity.com.

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