LAVA Systems Announces Strategy To Information-Enable Enterprises

First Steps to Fulfill Strategy are LAVA 5.0, LAVA Matrix Builder, LAVA DMS Toolkit and LAVA COLD, the Next Generation of LAVA Systems' Award-Winning Product Line

Toronto, ON - 1997-03-10 - LAVA Systems Inc. (TSE: LVA) today announced a broad-reaching strategy to develop solutions that information-enable enterprises, heightening strategic advantage for organizations by expanding the scope of their business knowledge. Announced as the first steps in this strategy were LAVA 5.0, new extensions to LAVA Enabler and the LAVA DMS Toolkit, the latest versions of LAVA Systems' award-winning products for integrating document management, imaging and workflow capabilities with leading line-of-business systems. Also introduced was LAVA COLD, a powerful new product integrating Computer Output to Laser Disc technology with LAVA 5.0. (See related release.)

"The information-enabled enterprise is the next generation of highly-productive organization, in which business process owners have the tools they need to gain maximum benefit from the myriad of information that enters and resides in their businesses each day," said Peter Hamilton, LAVA Systems' president and CEO. "Our new products, LAVA 5.0, the enhanced LAVA Enabler and the LAVA DMS Toolkit, make it possible to link information and business actions in new and unprecedented ways, giving organizations the tools they need to leverage all information resources at their disposal to achieve strategic advantage. The ability of LAVA Systems' products to tie together both pre-existing corporate transaction processing environments and desktop information systems creates organizations where information is not only accessed but acted upon."

Linda Myers-Tierney, of Myers-Tierney and Associates, said, "LAVA Systems' new products truly go beyond merely integrating the three technologies of document management, imaging and workflow, focusing on the more important issue of integrating these with organizations' line-of-business information and processes. By unlocking access to organizational information, LAVA creates powerful opportunities for reengineering processes and reaping business benefits such as increased productivity and customer satisfaction."

LAVA Matrix Builder, a new extension to LAVA Enabler , is a 32-bit tool that offers a simple user interface for mapping the relationships between data held in line-of-business systems and information managed by the LAVA 5.0 system. The Matrix Builder allows for sophisticated custom integrations to be built at client sites without the need to change a single line of code in the existing line-of-business system. Once integration is complete, end users can create, search, retrieve, view, print, modify and route documents from existing host applications.

"LAVA Systems' focus on the integration issues associated with line-of-business systems and document management has enabled its products to achieve a level of functionality unmatched by the other major players in the market," said James Watson, senior research analyst with Doculabs. "The new Matrix Builder makes LAVA Enabler an even more useful tool. By providing a GUI tool to map and link screens and fields directly into the document repository, much of the traditional coding associated with application development is reduced, saving time and resources."

The LAVA DMS Toolkit, the first public release of LAVA's Application Programming Interface (API), allows programmers to build LAVA functionality into new or existing third-party applications developed using leading development tools such as VisualBasic, PowerBuilder and Delphi. Once integration is complete, end users can create, access and manipulate LAVA data from within their business applications.

New features in LAVA 5.0, LAVA Systems' award-winning integrated document management, imaging and workflow solution, make the product the most comprehensive of its kind. Included are: * LAVA Workflow Designer, a graphical process modeling tool for generating LAVA workflow scripts, designed for business process owners who want to create and modify workflow routes without having to edit complex code; * graphical workload reporting tools that provide administrators with a valuable "snapshot" of what is happening in any part of the workflow system at any time; * the LAVA WorkSpace, a work area to which users can temporarily "clip" items for later use and perform any LAVA function in one operation on multiple unrelated documents; and * LAVA Stapler, a cross-referencing feature that allows multiple documents to be linked regardless of whether they have common indexing criteria and enables end-users to graphically view relationships and hierarchies.

Platforms LAVA supports the leading SQL databases including Oracle, Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server, running on network operating systems such as Microsoft NT, Novell NetWare and most versions of UNIX. The client component requires a 486 or higher processor, a Super VGA color screen, a minimum of 8MB RAM, Windows 3.1 or higher, Windows 95 or Windows NT.

Pricing and Availability The list price for LAVA 5.0 is $15,000 US for the server software. This also covers licenses for the first 10 seats. Additional seats have a list price of $950 US per seat. LAVA 5.0, the new LAVA Enabler and the LAVA DMS Toolkit will be available in May. They will be sold directly and through certified systems integrators.

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For more information, please contact

Margaret E. Dobbin
Director, Industry Analyst Relations
Open Text Corporation
+1-519-888-7111 ext.2410
mdobbin@opentext.com

Monta Kerr-Johnson
Account Director
High Road Communications
(416) 368-8348
mkerr@highrd.com