BackWeb Technologies Announces BackWeb Infocenter V4.0 Offering Automated Knowledge Push for the Enterprise

SAN JOSE, Dec. 10, 1997 -- BackWeb Technologies, the leading provider of enterprise push software solutions, today announced its BackWeb Infocenter V4.0, a client/server knowledge center. This solution gives corporations the ability to quickly create customized knowledge distribution solutions for intranet and extranet applications. The release is the culmination of BackWeb's work to integrate its push system with the tools obtained in its acquisition of Lanacom Inc. in July of this year.

With BackWeb Infocenter, BackWeb provides enterprises with two key components of knowledge management - knowledge delivery and knowledge automation. The Infocenter lets companies automatically gather and filter information from many sources and organize it in one convenient location. This delivery of relevant, just-in-time information enables employees, business partners and customers to be more competitive, increase revenue growth, strengthen profits and mobilize to take advantage of rapidly changing opportunities.

BackWeb's Infocenter can act as an integral piece of a company's overall information and knowledge management system, providing a set of tools and interfaces for integration with multiple content channels and technologies --including Individual's First!, Desktop Data's NewsEDGE, and Lotus's Domino.Merchant.

"In the early days, BackWeb had to help define push as a new concept. Now, BackWeb helps define what can be done with push," Steve Harmon, VP business development for Mecklermedia "When the hammer was invented, the first step was to define the concept and name the implement, 'this is a hammer, a tool.' Obviously the long-term value of a hammer is what it helps you build. The same is true with BackWeb's push tools. Knowledge automation and delivery is one area where BackWeb's tools become extremely useful, ensuring employees receive relevant data, information and services--something only a push-based software solution can provide."

"Our enterprise customers, such as AlliedSignal, Lufthansa and Samsung are using BackWeb in a variety of knowledge distribution solutions" said Eli Barkat, CEO of BackWeb Technologies. "With BackWeb's Infocenter, corporations can harness and leverage the knowledge they have spent tremendous time and resources to gather."

Channel Creation
BackWeb Infocenter supports a broad range of channel types for the distribution of content, files and applications. BackWeb Servers, web sites, file servers and web channels defined by CDF files can be the source for information that can be distributed to end users. Corporations can also program sophisticated extensions to the BackWeb server for connectivity to any system in the enterprise. Channels can be created from the company's intranet sites, web sites, search engines query results, news groups, files on the network, application and legacy databases.

The definition of many channels can be accomplished with the Channel Profiler Tool, a visual tool for non-programmers that is used to define web sites and intranet sites as channels in just minutes. Users can publish information and files on the server with BackWeb's HTML Publishing Wizard. These tools make it possible to make a wealth of corporate and external information available to users. Users will automatically have the latest copies of important files and information relevant to their needs.

Corporate Controls and Workgroup Administration
BackWeb's channel and workgroup administration tools enable corporations to designate workgroups, for which channel access, client configurations, and user interface settings can be defined at time of deployment and dynamically updated after deployment. This gives corporations the ability to define and implement information policy as a part of their overall knowledge management approach. Another feature of the BackWeb Infocenter is the Information Firewall capability to cache external channels in the BackWeb Server for distribution within the enterprise.

Customizing Knowledge Delivery and Automation
BackWeb's new Infocenter software brings the corporate employee or business partner a new level of knowledge control to ensure they receive relevant information. Users can choose from several channels that meet their particular needs and customize many of those channels to receive only specific information. Users can also use client-side searching, filtering and alerting rules to make sure the delivered information keeps up with the ebb and flow of their interests. Channels can also be built that deliver specific information to employees on a one-to-one basis, such as financial account information. These features work together to allow individuals to tap into the relevant parts of enterprise knowledge, whether they are an employee, supplier or customer.

Customization of the BackWeb Infocenter Client enables users to receive information in a variety of display formats, allowing for easy customization and maximizing usefulness. With simple point and click operation, users can scan many headlines, display summary information and open received files. Users can also use other display methods, including customizable tickers, flashes, Newstitles, screensavers and wallpapers.

Bandwidth Conservation, Byte Level Downloads
BackWeb Infocenter utilizes bandwidth conservation features, such as byte level differential downloads, data compression and a variety of Polite Communication technologies and management controls. The Infocenter also uses BackWeb's Polite Agent™ technology, a feature that monitors a user's network connection and transfers information, transparently during periods of communications inactivity.

BackWeb Utilizes Intel's CPU ID Capabilities
BackWeb enables content targeting by Intel CPU types yielding faster content changes and updates on Intel's Pentium®II processor. The BackWeb Infocenter uses Intel's CPU Identification capabilities which allows IS managers to segment content based on the end users computer processor. Types of processors can be targeted for specific downloads so that developers can fully utilize capabilities of the high-end machines such as Pentium II based PCs. These capabilities include higher quality audio & video (including full screen full motion MPEG 2), more complex 3D modeling, and higher quality digital images with smoother scrawling.

"BackWeb Infocenter along with Pentium II processor architecture is the type of application that will provide a scalable and robust framework for the development of E-business solutions," said Sally Fundakowski, Director of Intel's Business Developer Relations Group. "These solutions increasingly need to provide rich content to the right people in a timely and interactive manner.

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.