BackWeb Acquires Lanacom

Integrated Tools to Raise the Value, Lower the Cost of Implementing Enterprise Push

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 8, 1997 - BackWeb Technologies today announced that it will acquire Lanacom, Inc., Toronto-based developer of the Headliner family of push software. The privately-held companies did not disclose the terms of the deal, which is signed and will close in mid-July. BackWeb also announced its plans to integrate Lanacom's Headliner tools into the BackWeb Server software, creating the market's most comprehensive solution for building customized content for enterprise push.

"BackWeb has the most sophisticated technology for delivering and targeting software and rich content, and Lanacom has the best tools for corporations and users to manipulate, combine and control content from a variety of dynamic sources," said Eli Barkat, CEO of BackWeb. "Both are critical for making serious push work in today's enterprise, which requires tools that give corporate IS a high level of control with a low cost of implementation."

Lanacom's Headliner tools make it possible for companies and users to filter, manipulate and display customized information from web sites, newsgroups, databases and email systems in both Internet and intranet environments. The Headliner Enterprise Administration solution gives corporations a powerful, easy-to-use tool for managing both push clients and content across the enterprise. As part of BackWeb's server-based push solution, the Headliner tools will give corporate information professionals a powerful, easy way to assemble and customize intranet channels from a variety of external and internal information sources. And the combined technologies will give integrators and resellers the only solution on the market that allows them to easily create customized vertical market channels as a value-added service to their intranet customers.

"The combination of these powerful technologies is a big win for enterprise customers who want to use push for strategic business applications," said Tony Davis, president and CEO of Lanacom. "We're making it easier and more cost effective to implement push in an enterprise, by providing increased automation of content control and filtering, agent-based tools for extracting data from dynamic sources, tools for rapid development and the controls IS needs to easily manage content subscription and delivery on an enterprise network. And, we're giving corporations more out-of-the-box applications to run on top of the BackWeb server, and more content display options."

"BackWeb is taking push into the knowledge management arena, with the ability of the combined Headliner and BackWeb technologies to automate the location, retrieval and polite delivery of information that can then be easily manipulated and combined per corporate or end user requirements," said Stan Lepeak, vice president of Advanced Information Management Strategies at the META Group. "With this acquisition, BackWeb continues its focus on making push relevant in the enterprise."

Barkat noted that Lanacom adds complementary development expertise to BackWeb's R&D team and that the company will maintain Lanacom's Toronto offices as a development site. Davis will become senior vice president of product development for BackWeb, with responsibility for R&D and product management.

BackWeb also announced its plans to deliver integrated products in the fall. The Headliner Enterprise Administration solution and Headliner Professional will be integrated with and sold as an option to the BackWeb Server. The BackWeb and Headliner clients will also be integrated. BackWeb will deliver additional server and tool integration by the end of the year. The integrated products will support the Microsoft CDF push delivery standard and Netscape Netcaster.

In the interim, BackWeb will continue to make the free Headliner client available for download for access to the preconfigured web site profiles. The company will sell Headliner Professional and the recently announced Headliner Enterprise Administration solution to corporate customers who plan to upgrade to the integrated product.

"With this acquisition and several strategic partnerships, we are building a set of options around the BackWeb Server," said Barkat. "The first server option will be the ability to do real-time multicast push, with the integration of TIBCO's IP multicast technology. The second will be the ability to easily create custom web site channel profiles for corporate intranets, with the integration of the Headliner tools. We'll announce additional options in the coming months."

BackWeb Technologies provides push solutions for companies serious about using the Internet, their intranet or their extranets in new, strategic ways. BackWeb's innovative server technology enables companies to personalize channels; multicast real-time content; conserve bandwidth; and intelligently deliver any type of content, including Web pages, rich multimedia, software and corporate data. For more information visit www.backweb.com.

About BackWeb Technologies
BackWeb Technologies is a leading offline Web software company. BackWeb extends the value of technology investments by offering mobile and remote employees offline access to portals, intranets and other Web-based applications and content. The company's products reduce network costs and improve the productivity of an increasingly mobile workforce. At the core of BackWeb's products is its patented Polite® synchronization technology that can distribute large amounts of data even over narrow bandwidth connections. BackWeb® customers include market leaders such as Boehringer Ingelheim, Centocor, Eastman Kodak, GE Healthcare, Guidant, HP, KLA Tencor, Lam Research, Pfizer and more than one hundred other companies. BackWeb also has strategic reseller alliances with software industry leaders: Plumtree, SAP and IBM. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. and Rosh Ha'ayin, Israel. For more information, visit www.backweb.com or call (800) 863-0100.

Statements in this news release, which are not purely historical, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Securities laws, including statements of beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Examples of these statements include, but are not limited to, the ability of BackWeb software to allow customers to gain mobile, disconnected use of their portals and help increase field sales and field service productivity, the integration of BackWeb software with BEA products will help developers extend portal applications for offline use without changing the way they work, and the ability of the resulting applications to help field sales and service organizations realize maximum productivity, cost savings, and process acceleration gains while disconnected from the network. Actual results could differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include unforeseen technological issues related to use of the BackWeb software, deployment issues related to implementation, unforeseen software errors, competitive factors and business and expense factors that may affect the perceived efficiencies from use of BackWeb's products, and the risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in BackWeb's periodic reports and registration statements filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. BackWeb assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release.