BackWeb to Exhibit ProactivePortal Technologies at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Florida

San Jose, CA.- October 5, 2001 — BackWeb Technologies (Nasdaq: BWEB), the leading provider of ProactivePortal™ technologies for the enterprise, announced today it will showcase its next-generation ProactivePortal technology solutions for offline portals and Proactive™ notification at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Lake Buena Vista, Florida on October 8-12, 2001. The company's exhibit will be located in booth #1005.

"Tangible benefits and real ROI are requirements for today's enterprise portal implementations," said Gene Phifer, vice president and research director, Gartner, Inc. "One key element that identifies and drives ROI is offline support. Mobile users need to ‘take the portal with them,' using the same user interface offline that they use online, having access to local content and local applications through the familiar portal UI."

As an enterprise-class solution, the BackWeb® ProactivePortal Server™ can be integrated with any portal and Web-based content to deliver two must-have capabilities: offline access and Proactive notification. BackWeb's offline portal technology allows the user to access critical content while disconnected from the Internet—yet with the same personalized user experience offline as online. This is especially critical for millions of remote users for whom offline access to critical content is a ‘must have' to reaching business goals. In addition to offline access, the BackWeb ProactivePortal Server offers Proactive notification, which delivers time-sensitive content to specific users via attention grabbing Flashes, multimedia animations on the desktop that attract the users' attention without interfering with the active applications.

For further information on the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, please contact 800-778-1997 or visit www.gartner.com. To arrange a demonstration at the show, please contact BackWeb at 408-933-1786.

About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo
The either worldwide Gartner Symposium/ITxpo events are the IT industry's largest strategic executive conferences, offering business leaders at look at "The Future of IT – Today." If far-reaching, in-depth IT content is what you're looking for, you'll find it here: Symposium/ITxpo 2001 covers the IT map with an expanded list of 40 tracks and 230 sessions – with plenty of hot, new Gartner research across the agenda. Symposium/ITxpo 2001 tracks and sessions deliver business-critical IT intelligence that you can put to work in your organization right away. This year's agenda is designed to help you dig deeper into today's most pressing IT issues – with solutions guaranteed to influence your IT decisions over the next five years. For more information, call 1-800-778-1997, or visit the Gartner Web site at www.gartner.com/events.