Cupertino, Calif. --February 9, 1998-- Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC) today announced support for open application programming interface (APIs) architecture that will allow third-party software developers to integrate their tools into Visual Café for Java, the industry's leading integrated development environment for Java. Symantec's Visual Café for Java Open API architecture is designed to remain easily compatible through future releases of Visual Café for Java, with little or no dependence on internal features.

"Symantec has traditionally been associated with other exceptionally innovative companies in our industry, and our third-party vendor community in particular has played a vital role in our overwhelming acceptance by developers," said Mansour Safai, vice president of Symantec's Internet Tools division. "It's our philosophy that, by supporting these innovators for the long term, and by making room for their best work, we're ensuring that our development community continues to use the very best tools available anywhere with Visual Café for Java, now and in the future."

Symantec's Visual Café for Java Open API architecture offers a broad range of functionality. Some of the features of these Open APIs include:

• The Visual Café for Java Open APIs are designed to give third-party vendors flexible ways to implement their tools into Visual Café for Java, without imposing any unnecessary restrictions. Third parties can use any C, C++ or Pascal environment to implement the integration.
• The Project Templates API offers vendors the ability to register and add new project templates into Visual Café for Java, and supports both dynamic (interactive Wizard) and static project-template creation. Live Software is using the Project Templates API to provide integrated support for servlet development with their Servlet Wizard product.
• The Source Code Manipulation and Integration API provides a way for third-party software developers to ensure that interactive source code changes can be made with Visual Café, allowing for live integration with source code editing and modeling tools. Vendors can use this API to add their own classes and components to Visual Café for Java and ensure that when a user is working with advanced tools, changes made in the source code are reflected across all files. Rational and Platinum are two companies using the Source Code Manipulation and Integration API for live, two-way editing between their respective products -- Rational Rose 98 and Paradigm Plus -- and Visual Café for Java.
• The Symantec BeanInfo Extension APIs provide visual development environments with information missing from the BeanInfo specification for the placement and attributes of JavaBeans within a development environment, and to provide code generation between objects within that environment. All JavaBeans component vendors are using the Symantec BeanInfo Extension APIs, including KL Group, ObjectFX, and many others.
• The Menu Hooks API provides a way to add menu items to the Visual Café for Java menu bar. Many leading third-party Java development companies are taking advantage of the Menu Hooks API, such as BEA for Tuxedo/Jolt!
• The Project Windows Extension API lets vendors add columns to a Project Window, notify owners or users of specific events, and customize the Project Window with their own contextual help messages.
• The CASE API enables third parties to receive notification of project-level events, query, and set component property values, thus seamlessly integrating developers' use of CASE tools with Visual Café for Java.
• The Version Control API allows for vendor implementation of their version control system's user interface into Visual Cafe, allowing end users to install and work with multiple version-control systems on a per-project basis. Companies such as MKS, Intersolv PVCS, and Wallop Build IT are taking advantage of the Version Control, Project Window Extensions, and CASE APIs.
• The Data Binding API helps third-party component developers like Informix provide their users with a way to develop the exchange between Java UIs and databases without editing code, and offers a convenient way to bind visual components to databases.

"Rational understands the value of providing open interfaces to key development tools. That's one of the reasons Rational Rose has become the world's leading visual modeling tool," said Grady Booch, chief scientist at Rational Software Corporation. "As the acceptance of Java in enterprise application development increases, Java developers require robust and well-integrated tools. By teaming up with Symantec's Internet Tools Group to offer a seamless integration of Rational Rose and Visual Café for Java, we're expanding the benefits of visual modeling to Java developers."

"Using Symantec's Visual Café™ for Java Open APIs, PLATINUM technology can seamlessly integrate its PLATINUM Advantage solutions for application development infrastructure management with Visual Café," said Ed Miller, Senior Vice President of Application Lifecycle Solutions for PLATINUM. "These solutions include visual modeling with Paradigm Plus, business rule development with AionDS, server-side code development with SQL Station, and change and configuration management with CCC/Harvest."

"It's a great opportunity for a software company to be able to work with other progressive tools developers like Symantec™ to create a finely integrated solution for Java developers," remarked Todd Scallan, Director of Business Development for Black & White Software. "Our mission has always been to deliver the richest, most complete toolset for building distributed applications based on standards like Java™ and CORBA™, so working with Symantec on the development of these Open APIs dovetailed perfectly with Black & White's plans. Visual Cafe for Java and Black & White's OrbixBuilder benefit because of these APIs."

Paul Colton, President and CEO of Live Software, noted, "Live Software is very excited about Symantec's new Open APIs for the Visual Café for Java product line. Live Software has set itself apart as a leader in server-side Java computing, with an emphasis on server-side components including Java Servlets. Through these new Open APIs, Live Software has created a sophisticated Java Servlet project wizard that tightly integrates into Visual Café™ for Java's development environment. Using our Servlet Wizard, developers can now instantly build a framework for building their servlets. Using Visual Café for Java in combination with Live Software's Servlet Wizard and freely-available JRun Servlet Runner, developers can now create, develop, and deploy servlets easily."

StarBase's Director of Product Management, Steve Reynolds, says, "Symantec has created an industry-leading standard with the release of their new Visual Café™ for Java Open APIs. The APIs provide broad support for their vendor partners to contribute meaningful add-on products." Reynolds adds, "StarBase was pleased to work closely with Symantec in the specification and testing of the Version Control and Source Code Manipulation portions of the APIs. The result is a very usable interface that has enabled StarBase to deliver a high-value, collaborative framework, for development teams using Visual Café. We're proud Symantec is bundling a licensed copy of our Versions product with Visual Café."

"TDI was among the first to take advantage of the Visual Cafe for Java Open APIs," said Dr. Mohammad Ketabchi, the president and CEO of TDI. "We worked closely with Symantec and Computer Associates to tightly integrate CA's Jasmine™ object database Java bindings and APIs with Visual Café. This enabled us to bring the power of the Jasmine pure object database right into Visual Café. The real winners are Java developers. They can now seamlessly --more-- make their Java objects persistent in Jasmine from within the Visual Café for Java IDE."

"Visual Café for Java is the leading tool for programmers to build the Java-based components of a web site. Wallop Build-IT ties these components together with those created by graphic artists and content contributors. The Visual Cafe APIs enable seamless integration between the two products, thus integrating developers in the entire web site building process," commented Robert C. Bolt, CEO of Wallop Software, Inc.

Anyone interested in signing up for or downloading the documentation for the Visual Café for Java Open APIs is encouraged to do so from the Visual Café Web site at http://cafe.symantec.com/.

ABOUT VISUAL CAFé FOR JAVA Visual Café for Java has continued to guide the industry by example by providing the most complete solution for rapid application development according to Sun's latest standards for Java. Everything needed for development, from concept to deployment, is included in Visual Café for Java, including WYSIWYG Web-page design tools, advanced project-management views, state-of-the-art debugging tools and the industry's fastest compiler.

Three versions of Visual Café for Java are available for the varied Web-development needs, with in-browser debugging available in the Professional Development and Database Development Editions:
Visual Café for Java - Web Development Edition is a complete Web-authoring and Java-development solution for fast development by even beginning Web developers.
Visual Café' for Java - Professional Development Edition contains the most advanced features for professional developers within a powerful Java- and JavaBeans-development IDE.
Visual Café for Java - Database Development Edition is the leading Java™ development environment for building robust Java applications with instant database connectivity.

About Symantec's Internet Tools Division The Symantec Internet Tools Division pioneered the Java development tools market by delivering the first development product for Java in March 1996. Since then, the division has continued to develop, market and support a complete line of Java development tools worldwide, bringing the latest advances in Java technology to Internet developers. Symantec's product line includes Visual Page, Visual Café for Java Web Development Edition, Visual Café for Java Professional Development Edition, and Visual Café for Java Database Development Edition, available for Windows 95/NT and Macintosh, Symantec's Just-in-Time compiler is a component of Symantec's line of Internet Tools.

Symantec Visual Café has won virtually every award and honor available for Java development tools, including InfoWorld's Product of the Year Award, PC Magazine Award for Technical Excellence, PC Computing MVP Award, developer.com User's Choice, InternetWorld Best of Test, JavaWorld Editor's Choice Award, Java Developer's Journal World Class Award, ZD Internet Net Best, Software Development Jolt Award, Byte Best of Comdex, PC Magazine Editor's Choice, c|net Best of the Net Award, Web Techniques Best Java Tool of the Year Award, among others.

Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s Java, is the de facto standard platform for network computing.

About Symantec's Internet Tools Group
The Symantec Internet Tools Division pioneered the Java development tools market by delivering the first development product for Java in March, 1996. Since then, the division has continued to develop, market and support a complete line of Java development tools worldwide, bringing the latest advances in Java technology to Internet developers.

About Symantec
Symantec Corporation helps make users productive and keep their computers safe and reliable anywhere and anytime. Symantec offers a broad range of solutions and is acclaimed as a leader in both customer satisfaction and product brand recognition. The company is focused on addressing customer needs in three main application areas: the Norton product line of anti-virus and PC-assistance products; the pcANYWHERE, WinFax and ACT! product lines that cater to remote user productivity; and the Cafe product lines in Internet development tools.

Founded in 1982, the company's global operations span North America, Europe, Japan and several fast growing markets throughout Asia Pacific and Latin America. Traded on Nasdaq under the symbol SYMC, Symantec Corporation is based in Cupertino, California and employs more than 2,000 people. Information on the company and its products can be obtained by calling (800) 441-7234 toll free, (541) 334-6054 or accessed on the World Wide Web at http://www.symantec.com.

NOTE TO EDITORS: If you would like additional information on Symantec Corporation and its products, please view the Symantec Press Center at http://www.symantec.com/PressCenter/ on Symantec's web site.

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