Microsoft to Acquire NCompass Labs

Strategic Addition of Web Content Management System Extends Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server Family

REDMOND, Wash., April 30, 2001 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire NCompass Labs Inc., the developer of NCompass Resolution® . Released in March 2001, NCompass Resolution 4.0 is a Web content management system that enables businesses to quickly and cost-effectively deploy highly dynamic and personalized e-business Web sites. It dramatically reduces the time required to bring these applications to market while offering the scalability needed for the most demanding environments.

Microsoft is acquiring NCompass Labs in response to customer demand for Web content management solutions and because it recognizes the essential nature of this technology in any end-to-end e-business solution. As Web sites continue to evolve into strategic business communication tools, there is an increasing need to manage the content that drives that communication. Web content management systems ensure that organizations derive the maximum value possible from their investments in Internet, intranet and extranet Web sites.

"Microsoft understands that effectively managing Web content is critical to the success of any e-business initiative and, ultimately, to the profitability of the overall business," said Paul Flessner, senior vice president of the .NET Enterprise Server Division at Microsoft. "By acquiring NCompass Labs' Web content management system and integrating it with the Microsoft® .NET Enterprise Servers, we will enable customers to implement complete e-business solutions faster and more effectively than ever."

"I am extremely pleased to formalize our long-standing relationship with Microsoft," said Gerri Sinclair, president and CEO of NCompass Labs. "The combination of NCompass Resolution with Microsoft's technical expertise and breadth of complementary offerings will mean faster adoption of Web content management software by organizations of all sizes and types. This acquisition is a tremendous validation of our technology and the skills of our employees. It represents a significant win-win for all our new and existing customers who will benefit from the great combination of offerings from the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server family."

NCompass Resolution

The flagship product of NCompass Labs, NCompass Resolution 4.0 enables business users to easily create and maintain Web content. NCompass Resolution offers a highly scalable, dynamic architecture, and is specifically designed to ensure rapid time to market. NCompass Resolution customers include the Associated Press, Fujitsu Systems Business of America Inc., Johnson & Johnson Inc., Marriott International Inc., Microsoft, the Royal Canadian Mint, Texaco Inc. and Verizon Communications. NCompass Resolution enables organizations to realize the following business benefits:

• Streamline and improve Web communication by providing easy-to-use content-creation and workflow tools. Tools include revision tracking, spell checking, approval control, content publication scheduling and content archiving.
• Centralize the control of Web site design. Centrally controlled templates built by Web designers ensure consistency in site branding, usability and layout, with sitewide changes managed in one place.
• Create and deliver multilingual and wireless Web content. Unicode character support enables languages such as Japanese and Chinese, and browser recognition features dynamically switch templates to ensure that content is served in the appropriate language.
• Deliver personalized content for e-commerce sites. Seamless integration between Resolution and Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 enables organizations to build content-rich and highly personalized online business sites.
• Dramatically improve time to market. Web sites are fast to deploy because of standard Web technologies, integration with existing tools and familiar, highly usable browser based interfaces for site administration and content authoring.
• Scale Web deployments. Dynamic server clustering means that Web site scalability can be increased by adding additional servers or CPUs. Caching, coherence and load balancing technology ensure a fast and up-to-date user experience.

NCompass Resolution was built from the ground up for the Microsoft platform and integrates with Commerce Server 2000 for online business creation; it also builds on SQL Server™ 2000 for content storage and search capabilities. NCompass Resolution also complements the rest of the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server family for quickly creating end-to-end e-business solutions such as Microsoft BizTalk™ Server 2000 for XML-based, business-to-business integration and Microsoft SharePoint™ Portal Server 2001 for employee document management and collaboration.

NCompass Resolution Availability

NCompass Resolution 4.0 is available today. A re-branded offering, Microsoft Content Management Server 2001, is scheduled to be available in fall 2001. Customers who acquire NCompass Resolution 4.0 in the interim will have continued product support and product updates from Microsoft.

About NCompass Labs

NCompass Labs offers NCompass Resolution, the enterprise-strength Web content management system for the Microsoft platform. With NCompass Resolution, companies can quickly deploy strategic Web applications -- from personalized e-commerce Internet sites to global intranet sites. Resolution combines complete content contribution and delivery features with template-based publishing and centralized site management, while scaling to meet the needs of enterprise deployments. NCompass Resolution is fully integrated with the Microsoft .NET Enterprise Server family, including seamless content management for e-commerce sites built with Microsoft Commerce Server 2000. NCompass Labs was founded in February 1996 and has global headquarters in Vancouver, B.C., and its U.S. headquarters in San Jose, Calif. More information about NCompass Labs and its products is available at http://www.ncompass.com/ or by calling (877) 606-0950 (North America) or (604) 633-6500 (International).

About Microsoft and the .NET Enterprise Servers

The .NET Enterprise Servers are Microsoft's family of server applications for building, deploying and managing integrated Web solutions that move beyond today's world of stand-alone Web sites. Designed with mission-critical performance in mind, .NET Enterprise Servers provide fast time to market, as well as scalability, reliability and manageability for the global, Web-enabled enterprise. The .NET Enterprise Servers are a key part of Microsoft's broader .NET strategy, which will enable a distributed computing model for the Internet based on Internet protocols and standards to revolutionize the way computers talk to one another on our behalf.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq "MSFT" ) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software -- any time, any place and on any device.

Microsoft, BizTalk and SharePoint are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

NCompass and NCompass Resolution are registered trademarks or trademarks of NCompass Labs Inc.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft's corporate information pages.