ARDENT SOFTWARE JOINS META DATA COALITION; MEMBERSHIP ADVANCES ARDENT'S META DATA INTEGRATION EFFORTS

Ardent Software, Inc., a leading global data management software company, has announced that it has joined the Meta Data Coalition, a not-for-profit consortium of 47 vendors and end-users leading the development of industry-wide standards for meta data exchange. Ardent will support the Meta Data Coalition's Meta Data Interchange Specification (MDIS), a file format which enables access and interchange of meta data between software tools.

"Meta data management is and will continue to be a critical component in developing and maintaining the data warehouse," said Pete Fiore, vice president and general manager of Ardent Software's Data Warehouse Business Unit. "Joining the Meta Data Coalition is part of Ardent's strategy to provide customers with the most complete solutions for meta data integration. Our long-term goal is to eliminate the problem of disconnected meta data environments, giving IT managers the ability to seamlessly combine best-of-breed tools across the enterprise."

Through the acquisition of Dovetail Software in the second quarter of 1998, Ardent extended the meta data integration capabilities of its DataStage extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) tool; established the MetaConnect Cooperative - a collaborative of leading vendors working with Ardent to promote meta data sharing; and delivered the first set of MetaBrokers bridges for meta data exchange between data warehousing and popular business intelligence tools.

"Ardent's support complements and further strengthens the Coalition's ability to define an industry standard for meta data interchange," said Dr. Katherine Hammer, co-chair of the Meta Data Coalition and president and CEO of ETI. "Ardent has previously shown commitment to metadata interoperability, and its support of the MDC is further evidence of Ardent's continued promotion of metadata management in the marketplace."

As a member of the Meta Data Coalition, Ardent will contribute to the organization's ongoing efforts to standardize the exchange of software tool meta data and transformation business rules. Going forward, Ardent will support the Coalition's joint objectives, including:

• Creating a vendor-independent, industry-defined and -maintained standard access mechanism and standard application programming interface (API) for metadata;
• Empowering users to control and manage the access and manipulation of metadata in their unique environments through the use of interchange specification-compliant tools;
• Allowing users to build tool configurations that meet their needs and to incrementally adjust those configurations as necessary to add or subtract tools without impact on the interchange specification environment;
• Enabling individual tools to satisfy their specific metadata access requirements freely and easily within the context of an interchange model;
• Defining a clean, simple interchange implementation infrastructure that will facilitate compliance and speed adoption by minimizing the amount of modification required to existing tools to achieve and maintain MDIS compliance; and
• Creating a process and procedure not only for establishing and maintaining the MDIS but also for extending and updating it over time as required by evolving industry and user needs.

MDC membership marks the latest step in Ardent's global mission to provide a broad set of data warehouse management solutions for customers and partners. In the fourth quarter of 1998, Ardent signed a definitive agreement to acquire Prism Solutions, Inc., a pioneer and leading provider of tools and solutions to the data warehousing market.

About the MetaConnect Cooperative

The MetaConnect Cooperative is a breakthrough meta data integration program designed to allow warehouse tools to share meta data across the enterprise. Through this cooperative, Ardent is developing MetaBrokers - direct interfaces with leading software tools for release in the first two quarters of 1999. Ardent's MetaBrokers enable end-users to see and understand meta data lineage and the business rules that apply to warehoused data. With the cooperation of MetaConnect participants, Ardent's meta data integration solution will enhance the value and effectiveness of the entire data warehouse. MetaConnect partners include BMC, Brio Technology, Business Objects, Cognos, Embarcadero Technologies, Information Advantage, Informix, Seagate Software and Whitelight Systems.

About the Meta Data Coalition

The Meta Data Coalition (MDC), founded in 1995 by industry-leading vendors, has defined a tactical set of standard specifications for the access and interchange of metadata between software tools (MDIS). Participation in the MDC is open to all vendors and end users. Information about the Meta Data Coalition is available through the MDC Web site at http://www.MDCinfo.com/.

About Ardent Software

Ardent Software is a leading global data management software company. Ardent develops and markets embedded databases and software tools for enterprise-scale applications and data warehouses. Its products include DataStage, a data warehouse development tool; UniVerse and UniData, extended relational database management systems for packaged business applications and the O2 System, the leading platform and repository for dynamic enterprise-scale content management. With worldwide sales and service operations, and 1,000 resellers in more than 50 countries, Ardent is one of the top software companies in the world. More than 60,000 customers and 2.2 million users in virtually every aspect of business and government use applications powered by Ardent's products and technologies to solve complex data management problems. Additional information is available on Ardent's web site at http://www.ardentsoftware.com.