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News Release

Symantec (TM) Announces Symantec Visual Café (TM) Version 3.0

- Symantec Visual Café 3.0 Puts the Swing in JFC -

Cupertino, Calif --October 26, 1998-- Symantec Corporation (NASDAQ: SYMC) today announced a major new release: Symantec Symantec Visual Cafe version 3.0. The new versions of Symantec Symantec Visual Cafe, which for three years in a row has been the #1-selling Javar application development tool, are Symantec Visual Café Database Edition, Symantec Visual Café Professional Edition and Symantec Visual Café Standard Edition. More developers use these award-winning products than any other Java development product, and this new release contains everything they've asked for and more.

Works the Way Developers Do
Symantec Visual Café 3.0 builds on the flexibility already available in previous versions. The visual tools in Symantec's Visual Café's provide incremental, 2-way coding; developers decide the mix of visual programming and hand coding they desire. In addition to flexible user interface and development options, Symantec has added support for developers to plug in any version from 1.1 through 1.2 of the Java Development Kit (JDK). This lets developers work with older JDK versions or update existing applications to newer JDK versions, taking advantage of the latest functionality available from Sun Microsystems.

Leverages Your Investment in Existing Development Tools
Symantec Visual Café 3.0 is designed to be an open environment so developers can easily integrate it with their existing development tools. Symantec Visual Café 3.0 features a new set of Java Open APIs with enhanced functionality to cover the entire development lifecycle. The Open APIs provide specific interfaces to make it easy to integrate Symantec Visual Café with all kinds of development tools including CASE, testing, source code management and version control tools.

Supports the Latest Java Technologies
The Symantec Visual Café family of products uses the latest version of the JDK (version 1.1.7) while offering the flexibility to work with any version of the JDK, including the upcoming 1.2.

No other tool provides support for JFC/Swing that comes close. Symantec Visual Café 3.0 provides superior support because it fully supports and embraces the new JFC/Swing classes throughout its environment, including unique direct support for the Swing data model. Symantec Visual Café 3.0 does away with the proprietary wrappers required by most other Java development tools. Full support for JTabbedPane is also offered.

Custom property editors for Swing properties are provided, as is a GUI Swing menu bar editor. Symantec Visual Café's support for JFC/Swing also includes ready-to-use model, border and icons beans, and WYSIWYG support for JFC in the form designer. Models represented on the form are easily manipulated. For example: to connect a JTable to a database, simply connect it in the form editor to the database via the JFC binding model; or to put values in a combo box, use the JFC string model.

"_Of the four IDEs that we examined for this Special Report, Visual Cafe really was the only one that enabled us to create a working Swing applet that did what we wanted it to do without having to add any handwritten code_" The Swing Connection http://www.javasoft.com/products/jfc/tsc/swingdoc-current/visualcafe.html#

The new Symantec Visual Café version 3.0 also offers dramatic, productivity-enhancing improvements to its visual interaction creation and editing with richer functionality, including a way to diagram interactions or connections among objects, and easy interaction editing capabilities for modifying existing interactions. Interactions are represented diagrammatically on the form editor. Developers can view existing interactions and simply select them to edit, change properties or add methods. Experienced developers can exploit these features to reduce or eliminate tedious coding tasks. Novice developers can build more sophisticated applications with very little hand coding.

Java developers are now able to develop server side applets and extend the functionality of their web servers with Symantec Visual Café 3.0's superior support for servlet development. The new Servlet Wizard makes servlet development and deployment simple. Symantec Visual Café goes even further by providing a unique incremental servlet debugging capability. Symantec Visual Café 3.0 makes it possible to debug server side Java servlets on remote web servers. Developing servlets has never been this quick or this easy.

"This is the third generation of our Java development tools, and are very mature products," said Mansour Safi, Vice President of Symantec's Internet Tools Division. "We have the largest installed base of Java developers that provide us with a unique understanding of exactly what they require in their tools. We provide superior JFC/Swing support, servlet support, and database connectivity, in addition to innovations like our interaction editing. Visual Café 3.0 is an easy to use, open environment and is easily tailored to the preferences of each developer. There is no other tool that provides the same combination of quality, flexibility, performance, innovative features, and support for the latest Java technologies," Safai said.

Innovative Features
Symantec Visual Café 2.5 set the bar for innovation in development tools for Java with innovative features like native code generation, incremental debugging, server-side debugging, browser debugging, SDI/MDI interface, selectable RAD or 3GL development. Symantec Visual Café 3.0 goes further to improve developer productivity and help novice Java developers get productive, faster. Symantec Visual Café 3.0 introduces features like Code Helper, one-step deployment, rapid JavaBean development, localization utility, and JavaDoc support, as well as improvements in the debugger, database wizards, dbNavigator, database connectivity: JDBC, ODBC, and native, user interface, and AutoJAR.

"The functions and short-cuts in Visual Café are intuitively obvious, making the iterative design-code-test process quick and productive. We're looking forward to working with the even more powerful and flexible Visual Café 3.0," said Nora M. Denzel, Senior Vice President of Legato Systems, Inc. Legato's platform-independent Legato NetWorker BusinesSuite is the de facto storage management solution for 24 of the world's largest system and application OEMs, including Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, and Sun Microsystems. "We were able to do single-handed in eight months what otherwise would have taken a seven-person development team upwards of two years," concluded Denzel. And in the new Symantec Visual Café, the industry's fastest JIT gets even faster, as the new JIT 3.1 dramatically increases start-up time. Symantec Visual Café's JIT is licensed and used by Apple, Novell, Netscape, and Sun Microsystems, among others. Symantec Visual Café 3.0 also provides a native x86 code generator for applications that require maximum performance.

About Symantec Visual Café Database Edition
The fastest Java development solution for corporate databases, Symantec Visual Café Database Edition builds on all the power of the professional edition (described below), and adds functionality that makes it easy to build database-centric applications. This version:

  • complies to the standard JFC/Swing data model - any JFC/Swing component is readily data aware, so there is no need for special "dbaware" components.
  • features new wizards including support for SQL and stored procedures, encapsulated into JavaBeans - making it easy to reuse elements of existing applications.
  • offers Query By Example (QBE) - lets end users of an application >construct sophisticated queries without knowing SQL.
  • gives calculation and validation rules - which provide an easy way to develop smarter applications.
  • supports the use of any standard JDBC driver during development - extending Symantec Visual Café's open architecture philosophy.
  • uses improved database wizards to support JFC/Swing components - enhancing ease of use.
  • incorporates new database toolbars and a status bar - providing a professional look and feel for your applications.
  • offers customizers throughout the environment - providing easy manipulation of new JavaBean components.
  • automatic development of master-detail relationships

About Symantec Visual Café Professional Edition
The Professional Edition offers more features and higher quality than any previous version of Symantec Visual Café. Professional developers become productive faster with even shorter learning curves due to new features like JFC/Swing support and interactive editing. Novice developers find these features easy to use and are able to successfully build and maintain more complex applications, sooner. In this edition:

Interaction Wizard provides easy development and editing of interactions with visual representations between components. Functionality has been expanded to include support for method calls, property settings and action requests between objects.

new Wizards and utilities such as the Java Servlet Wizard, Localization Wizard, One-step deployment, AutoJar utility and Rapid Bean Development increase development productivity.

the new version control bridge provides seamless integration and compatibility with all popular version control systems, for supporting large development teams.

About Symantec Visual Café Standard Edition
Symantec Visual Café's intuitive environment is ideal for new users of Java. The highly productive interface lets users drag and drop Java components to easily build applications, while the two-way programming helps them visually learn Java coding as it is automatically generated. Standard Edition features:

  • Code Helper, which provides hints as developers code.
  • 100+ Java components with source provide a head start in development.
  • help for new users to create Java Beans.
  • a dramatically improved Interaction Editor, allowing the development of visual interactions between components, as well as providing full interaction editing control. Does more with less hand coding.
  • a new one-step deployment feature for easier application deployment, with support for JAR, ZIP and CAB format.
  • extensive online help and hard-copy documentation with examples, that are readily available.

Pricing and Availability
Symantec's Visual Café 3.0 will be available in Q498. Symantec Visual Cafe Database Edition for Windowsr 95, Windows 98 and Windows NTr will have an estimated retail price of $799.95. Symantec Visual Cafe Professional Edition for Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT will have an estimated retail price of $299.95. Symantec Visual Cafe Standard Edition for Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT will have an estimated retail price of $99.95.

Symantec Visual Café 3.0 is also available in fully localized versions for Japanese, German, and French.

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, including Symantec Visual Page, Symantec Visual Café Standard Edition, Symantec Visual Café Professional Edition, and Symantec Visual Café Database Edition.

Symantec Visual Café annually wins virtually every award and honor available for Java development tools, given by experts affiliated with top publications and organizations throughout the industry. In total, Symantec Visual Café has won more awards than any other Java development tool on the market.

About Symantec
Symantec is the world leader in utility software for business and personal computing. Symantec products and solutions help 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. Symantec is traded on Nasdaq under the symbol SYMC. More information on the company and its products can be obtained at www.symantec.com.

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

Brands and products referenced herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. All prices noted are in US dollars and are valid only in the United States.