Features - Storage Innovations:

IMATION IMPLEMENTS GENTRAN INTEGRATION SUITE

Sterling Commerce announced recently that Imation Corp, a world leader in removable data storage media, is in production with Gentran Integration Suite to automate online product orders and translate foreign language business information.

The Gentran Integration Suite implementation automates Imation's retrieval and processing of online product orders from an order clearinghouse. The next-generation Gentran solution includes business process automation to capture Web orders, a Process Management Engine to handle error-checking and advanced translation capabilities to present order information seamlessly into Imation's ERP system for assimilation, review and appropriate action.

Imation also is tapping the power of Gentran Integration Suite to consolidate all its UNIX-based applications into one platform by replacing an NT server-based EDI transformation of foreign languages that use double-byte character sets.

"As a longtime Gentran customer, we're delighted that this solution to our integration problem was handled so quickly and smoothly within the framework of our existing Gentran business platform," said Flo Kinzel, chief technical officer at Imation. "We're amazed that within three weeks we had solutions to our online ordering and language translation problems implemented, tested and ready for production with no interruption to current systems and processes."

Kinzel noted that online order automation using Internet protocols reduces IT costs and increases customer service levels by doing away with batch processing and making this critical business process a real-time event. Imation also is able to reduce maintenance costs by moving its Japanese EDI transformation operation away from a separate NT server over to the UNIX platform alongside its other processes.

"Gentran Integration Suite is a true evolution of the Gentran product line in that it provides next-generation solutions for B2B, EDI, EAI and Web enablement," said Sam Starr, chief operating officer at Sterling Commerce. "The result is a family of components designed to extend the advanced integration capabilities of Gentran deeper into areas both inside and outside an organization, and with solutions that can be quickly deployed at no risk to existing environments."

Gentran Integration Suite offers advanced integration broker capabilities used by more than 6,000 Sterling Commerce Gentran customers worldwide. Enhanced capabilities include business process management, graphical process modeling, secure AS2 communication, XML translation, EAI adapters and support for emerging B2B standards such as UCCnet, RosettaNet and ebXML.

About Imation

Imation Corp is a leading developer, manufacturer and supplier of magnetic and optical removable data storage media. With one of the broadest product lines in the industry, Imation serves customers in more than 60 countries in both business and consumer markets. From large data centers to distributed networks, Imation's tape cartridges are used in data processing, security, business continuity, backup and archiving applications. Customer needs for reliability, convenience and portability to store and manage business data, photos, video, images and music on professional and home desktops, and increasingly in consumer electronics devices, drive demand for Imation's optical and diskette products. With more than 300 technology scientists and nearly 300 patents in the U.S. alone, Imation continues to pioneer today's proven magnetic and optical media technologies. Additional information about Imation is available on the company's Web site at www.imation.com.

About Sterling Commerce

Sterling Commerce, a wholly owned subsidiary of SBC Communications, Inc is one of the world's largest providers of business-to-business commerce solutions for companies worldwide. Sterling Commerce software and services help maximize business performance and improve business metrics through integration of applications, external partner systems and people for Global 5000 companies and their trading partners. For more than 25 years Sterling Commerce has been a recognized pioneer in business-to-business commerce through its longstanding expertise in EDI. As companies explore new ways to improve business performance using the Internet, Sterling Commerce continues to innovate its software and services to further global e-commerce by offering its customers strategic solutions that leverage existing technologies. For more information, visit www.sterlingcommerce.com.

SBC Communications Inc is one of the world's leading data, voice and Internet services providers. Through its world-class network and its subsidiaries' trusted brands -- SBC Southwestern Bell, SBC Ameritech, SBC Pacific Bell, SBC Nevada Bell, SBC SNET and Sterling Commerce -- SBC companies provide a full range of voice, data, networking and e-business services, as well as directory advertising and publishing. A Fortune 30 company, America's leading provider of high-speed DSL Internet Access services, and one of the nation's leading Internet Service Providers, SBC companies currently serve 58 million access lines nationwide. In addition, SBC owns 60 percent of America's second-largest wireless company, Cingular Wireless, which serves more than 22 million wireless customers. Internationally, SBC has telecommunications investments in 25 countries.

Contact: Valerie Nixon, 614-791-6474.