San Francisco, CA 19 May 1997

For Immediate Release

For Additional Information:

Ms. Rita Bral VP/Corporate Communication Software Research, Inc. 1663 Mission Street, Suite 400 San Francisco, CA 94103 USA [+1] (415) 861-2800 bral@sr-corp.com www.soft.com

Mr. Dan Peters Director of Business Alliances Aonix, Inc. 5040 Shoreham Place San Diego, CA 92122 [+1] (619) 457-2100 peters@aonix.com www.aonix.com

Software Research Announces Comprehensive Cooperative Marketing Agreement with Aonix.

San Francisco, CA, May 16, 1997 -- Aonix and Software Research, Inc. (SR) have announced a comprehensive sales and marketing agreement which offers the first end-to-end solution of Automated Software Testing Tools available in one package today. Through the integration of their complementary tools, the two companies provide a process for reducing the error-prone nature of testing -- an area where software developers spend most of their time. In the past test cases were generated by hand. The Aonix test tool generates test cases automatically at ten times the rate of manual methods. The Aonix automatic test case generation coupled with Software Research/TestWorks for automatic test execution will dramatically improve productivity of software testing by decreasing test schedules. The two tools together will also increase quality of software testing through increased test coverage.

The agreement between the two companies includes exclusive use by Aonix of Software Research's TestWorks suite in all Aonix sales/installations, special emphasis by Aonix and Software Research/TestWorks on sales of the 10X program, and sharing of sales distribution and leads by both organizations.

The 10X program offering, which includes five days of comprehensive training on Requirements Modeling and Specification Based Testing works in the following way: Starting with Aonix' Software through Pictures StP/OMT product with the Use Case Editor, the user records requirements and uses "T" the Aonix test case generation tool for generating test cases. Then the users runs Software Research's TestWorks Regression suite for automated test execution, validation and test management of the generated test cases. Once it has been determined that the test cases demonstrate the requirements, Software Research's SR/TestWorks Coverage tool evaluates the quality and completeness of the test cases by indicating how much of the source code has been exercised at the branch, call-pair and path or path class level. All information is easily accessible through visual reports.

SR/TestWorks Tool Suite

The SR/TestWorks tool suite offers a family of integrated testing and QA products for test data generation, regression testing, capture and playback, test execution and evaluation. SR/TestWorks also provides software test management and reporting, code comprehension, coverage analysis, metrics and maintenance in some of the most-commonly used languages such as Java, C, C++, Ada and Fortran F77. TestWorks is available for the major UNIX platforms, Windows 95, Windows NT and DOS. Its open architecture allows for testing of enterprise-wide applications in both embedded or client/server systems and GUI desktop or Web applications.

The Aonix Tool Suite

The Aonix tool suite includes: Software through Pictures Object Modeling Technique (StP/OMT), a robust multi-user analysis and design environment with a shared repository that supports development teams through the full life cycle of object-oriented application development; the Use Case Editor which performs high level analysis with usage models to identify requirements; and the "T" Test Case Generator which automatically builds test cases to test the validity of those requirements.

Dr. Edward Miller, President of SR said, "The reasons to thoroughly test software are even more true than they have been historically, and the opportunity now exists to assure quality from the very beginning of the software life cycle, when the chance to prevent defects has the highest payoff, to the end of the development cycle, where very often the most critical defects that affect product quality are often found."

"The agreement we've signed is historic because it provides a true end-to-end solution to the software development process that is affordable, efficient, effective and more comprehensive than any other available solution."

"The Aonix and SR suite of tools is the most complete set of testing tools on the market providing and end-to-end testing solution to the user with tools for creating test-ready specifications and models, tools for generating test cases and scripts, tools for managing large sets of test cases and scripts, tools for executing test scripts, and tools for evaluating test coverage," says Bob Poston - Director of Testing Tools & Practices for Aonix and author of the book "Automating Specification-Based Software Testing"

About Software Research, Inc.

Software Research was the pioneer in software testing and quality assurance and remains at the forefront of innovative testing technologies. Founded in 1977 as a consulting and service organization, Software Research, Inc. is the world leader in this field, providing the broadest suite of integrated software testing tools on the market: TestWorks. Product details are available directly by phone: (415) 861-2800, Fax: (415) 861-9801 and E-mail: info@sr-corp.com. The SR web site is www.soft.com.

About Aonix

Aonix is one of the world's largest software developers with more than 20,000 installations and half a million users of its software development tools. Aonix offers complete lifecycle solutions for analyzing requirements, designing, implementing, testing, and deploying software for even the most challenging commercial or technical projects. Aonix details can be found on the Internet at: www.aonix.com .