BackWeb Announces Agreement with IBM to Provide BackWeb Technology for WebSphere

BackWeb's Technology to Provide Proactive Services to IBM WebSphere Offerings

SAN JOSE, Calif. - May 8, 2001 - BackWeb Technologies (Nasdaq: BWEB), a leading provider of push communications infrastructure for e-business, today announced an agreement with IBM to provide BackWeb's proactive content delivery and notification technology for IBM WebSphere* customers worldwide. By adding the BackWeb® solution to IBM's WebSphere offerings, the enhanced technology can advance end-users interaction with Web applications and sophisticated portals.

With BackWeb´s technology, WebSphere customers can enable end-users to subscribe to personalized information to be proactively delivered to them from their Web applications. Users receive alert notifications when new business critical and time-sensitive information becomes available. Notifications and selected content can be delivered to users on virtually any communication device - including desktop PCs, PDAs, fax machines and digital cellular phones. Once delivered, the content remains available both on and off-line for easy remote access. These capabilities can allow WebSphere customers to extend the overall user experience beyond the Web and influence users to respond quickly and interact more frequently with their Web applications.

"The industry continues to demand total solutions for building faster and better e-business applications. By working with BackWeb, IBM WebSphere is helping businesses build sophisticated e-business solutions," said Ed Harbour, director, WebSphere Product Management, IBM. "By leveraging BackWeb's proactive content delivery, IBM continues to provide capability to deliver information quickly and accurately to the end-user helping save time, effort, money and overall frustration for the customer and end-user alike."

IBM WebSphere customers will be able to leverage the BackWeb technology designed to extend the reach of the e-business to its customers, partners and employees, helping to strengthen their ROI on their technology and content investments. The solution helps companies to reduce the amount of time wasted searching or waiting for relevant content, while helping increase productivity of mobile and disconnected users by making selected content available offline. In addition, enterprise organizations can proactively distribute more accurate information, to the right people, at the right time, and on the right device, helping create a higher quality relationship with the key people who support their business.

"BackWeb's strategy focuses on the user as the destination, positioning the user as the focal point to ensure the user is consistently informed with the right information, at the right time, impacting the success of the relationship and creating long-standing loyalty," said Eli Barkat, chairman and CEO of BackWeb Technologies. "By proactively sending mission critical information to users, virtually anywhere and any time, BackWeb can be a reliable mechanism for communicating with your audience that brings them back to your e-business time and time again."

About IBM's (NYSE: IBM) WebSphere Software
WebSphere is Internet infrastructure software -- known as middleware -- that enables companies to develop, deploy and integrate next-generation e-business applications, such as those for business-to-business e-commerce. WebSphere supports business applications from simple Web publishing through enterprise-scale transaction processing. WebSphere transforms the way businesses manage customer, partner and employee relationships. More information about the WebSphere software platform is on the Web at http://www.ibm.com/websphere.