SAN FRANCISCO, CA., March 30, 2000 -iPlanettm E-Commerce Solutions, a Sun-Netscape Alliance, and THOUGHT Inc., the leader in Object Oriented Mapping technology, today announced that together the companies will provide customers a quick and easy way to integrate relational data with Enterprise JavaBeans applications. Current customers of the Netscape Application Server 4.0 from iPlanet can now take advantage of container and bean managed persistence (CMP/BMP) with the use of CocoBase Enterprise O/R from THOUGHT, Inc. By significantly enhancing its JavaÔ technology implementation, iPlanet's Netscape Application Server, combined with CocoBase Enterprise O/R, is a compelling platform for building high performance, scaleable, and fault tolerant e-commerce solutions for the Net Economy.

"Our integration with the iPlanet software supports both container and bean managed persistence, providing a complete development platform for database access with EJB applications. Used together, the two products deliver flexible and customizable persistence that can easily adapt to our customers' needs," said Ward Mullins, CTO of THOUGHT Inc.

CMP allows developers using iPlanet technology to build EJB components without having to directly deal with persistence during development, while BMP requires that the developer write a certain amount of persistence code. The use of CMP reduces the need for a developer to understand or to implement persistence code, which can dramatically speed up development. In contrast, the use of BMP makes it easier for the developer to edit and customize persistence code during development. While this option delivers more flexibility to a developer, it can be unwieldy and costly without an O/R product such as CocoBase.

"We are constantly evaluating tools to include in our iPlanet software portfolio and found CocoBase Enterprise O/R to meet the needs of our current customers as well as future iPlanet Application Server 6.0 customers for CMP. CocoBase's extensible and flexible persistence architecture makes it a good tool for use in the wide variety of business applications that customers are using our application servers for today," said Joe Keller, vice president of application server products at iPlanet.

The CocoBase Enterprise O/R mapping tool provides full support for EJB 1.0 and 1.1 and now enables developers to offer consistent, high-end database access. CocoBase can generate all of the CMP/BMP entity beans with persistence code necessary from its highly optimized and editable templates. This provides the iPlanet EJB platform with rapid development and fine-grained object to relational mapping that meets the needs of enterprise systems.

"We find that the main requirements companies have for building applications on the EJB server platform is high performance, ease of use and scalability," said Dan Wilson, vice president of sales and marketing at THOUGHT Inc. "The recent enhancements to our CocoBase Enterprise O/R specifically for EJB make it an essential part of the solution for delivering these requirements to our customers in combination with iPlanet's Netscape Application Server product."


Netscape Application Server 4.0

iPlanet's Netscape Application Server 4.0 provides comprehensive functionality for enterprises implementing business-critical Internet and extranet applications when high-performance, rapid deployment, scalability, high availability, and enterprise integration are critical. An intuitive, flexible development environment allows an enterprise solution to be quickly built and extended with its application frameworks across heterogeneous environments.


About Thought Inc.

Established in 1993, THOUGHT Inc. is the market leader in Java-based object-oriented Mapping Middleware technology. THOUGHT Inc. has been shipping CocoBase, the patented flagship product and the industry's most advanced framework for accessing legacy data in a distributed application since March of 1997. Since that time, THOUGHT Inc. founders have successfully provided solutions for customers deploying applications on the Worldwide Web and have gained a reputation for excellence in their field. CocoBase is a standards based product relying on such technologies as RMI, CORBA, JDBC, EJB, etc. Thought Inc. makes its home in San Francisco supporting customers worldwide in the United States, Europe, Japan, Asia and Australia. The CocoBase family of products are available through distributors, resellers and directly online at their Yahoo Store. CocoBase and THOUGHT Inc. are registered trademarks of THOUGHT Inc. CocoBase technology is based on US patent #5857197. More information on THOUGHT Inc. can be found online at www.thoughtinc.com.

About iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions

iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions, a Sun-Netscape Alliance, was established in March 1999 by America Online, Inc. (NYSE: AOL) and Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDQ: SUNW) to provide easy-to-deploy, comprehensive e-commerce solutions for the Net Economy. iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions provides the industry's broadest portfolio of Internet infrastructure and e-commerce applications software and services. Its iPlanet Messaging, Directory, Web and Application Server software all enjoy #1 marketshare positions. For more information, consult the iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions Web site at www.iplanet.com or call 888-786-8111.

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Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Enterprise JavaBeans, EJB, Java and iPlanet are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Netscape and the Netscape N logo are registered trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other Netscape logos, product names, and service names are also trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation, which may be registered in other countries.