MORE THAN 40 COMPANIES JOIN NETSCAPE AND U. MICHIGAN TO SUPPORT LIGHTWEIGHT DIRECTORY ACCESS PROTOCOL AS PROPOSED STANDARD FOR INTERNET DIRECTORIES

NETSCAPE ANNOUNCES NETSCAPE DIRECTORY SERVER TO DELIVER OPEN, CROSS-PLATFORM LDAP-BASED DIRECTORY SERVICES FOR LOCATING ONLINE USERS AND RESOURCES

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (April 22, 1996) -- Netscape Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: NSCP) today announced that the University of Michigan, AT&T, Banyan, IBM, Lotus, Novell and more than 40 other companies support the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP, RFC 1777) as a proposed open standard for directory services on the Internet. LDAP is a protocol for accessing online directory services over the TCP/IP network protocol, and can be used to access standalone LDAP directory services or directory services supporting the X.500 standard. It provides a standard way for Internet clients, applications and Web servers to access directory listings of thousands of Internet users.

Netscape will deliver this technology to corporate customers in a new product, Netscape Directory Server, an open, scalable server software for running an enterprise-wide directory that contains listings of people and resources. Based on technology pioneered at the University of Michigan, Netscape Directory Server makes it simple for corporate users to quickly and easily create and query directories of people and information stored on corporate Intranets and the Internet. With Netscape Directory Server, vital corporate information such as user names, electronic mail addresses, public key certificates and contact information can be organized and published in a searchable, structured, scalable directory. This information can be replicated automatically throughout the enterprise or between enterprises.

"While proprietary directory services have been available for some time, Netscape Directory Server offers comprehensive, scalable directory services based on an open Internet standard," said Eric Hahn, senior vice president of enterprise technologies at Netscape. "With major companies lining up behind LDAP as a standard, enterprise customers can be assured of true interoperability between directory servers and applications, whether they are managing enterprise directories or searching out information across the Internet."

The more than 40 companies and organizations supporting LDAP are: @Home, AT&T, Aurum Software, Inc., Banyan, BBN Planet, The Bigfoot Directory, Inc., CADIS, Inc., Computer Associates, Control Data Systems, Inc., Digital Equipment Corporation, Excite, First Floor Software, GE Information Services, Hewlett-Packard Company, IBM, ICL High Performance Systems, IDT Corp., Information Dimensions, Innosoft, The Internet Factory, Inc., JYACC, Inc., Kapalua Consulting, Lotus, Lycos, Macromedia, Maximum Information Inc., NCR, Network Applications Consortium (NAC), NCD Software Corporation, Netscape, Northern Telecom (Nortel) Secure Networks, Novadigm, Inc., Novell, Inc., OnTime (a subsidiary of FTP Software Inc.), Open Horizon, Inc., Silicon Graphics, Inc., Software.com, Starfish Software, Inc., Strata Software Limited, SunSoft, Inc., University of Michigan, VeriSign, Inc., and Yahoo! Inc.

"We want to make it easy for people to find each other both on the Internet and on Intranets," said Tom Evslin, vice president AT&T WorldNet Service. "Agreement between AT&T, Netscape, Novell and others on the open LDAP standard helps assure that those who access the Internet through AT&T WorldNet Service or who build Intranets with AT&T Netware Connect Service will have rich directory services. We hope and expect that other network providers will also support this standard."

"LDAP is the most effective way to extend enterprise-level directory services to Intranets and the Internet," said John M. Paul, senior vice president of Coordinate.com, the Internet division of Banyan Systems Inc., which is extending LDAP support to StreetTalk, its highly regarded directory service, and Switchboard, the vast on-line directory of people and businesses. "The combination of LDAP and StreetTalk will make it much easier for organizations to look up people and their e-mail addresses and to effectively manage large, distributed corporate networks over the Internet."

"IBM welcomes Netscape's cooperation with the LDAP community," said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, General Manager, IBM Internet Division. "IBM strongly supports the open LDAP protocol and will support its adoption as an IETF RFC. The widespread adoption of LDAP will provide customers with a standard, interoperable way to access directory services in heterogeneous environments from a wide variety of clients. LDAP has the potential to expand enterprise, Intranet and Internet directories to include browser-enabled users."

"LDAP is an important standard for customers because it provides a base level for directory interoperability," said Vic Langford, senior vice president, Novell, Inc. "Our announcement today of LDAP support within NDS is a critical next step in taking the power of NDS to the open standards of the Internet and Intranets. It means we will continue to provide the most complete directory solution for businesses of all sizes while we grow today's NDS installed base of 15 million users."

Netscape Directory Server will include the following key features:

• Comprehensive directory services including hierarchical entries, extensible attribute/value pairs, support for text, graphics and other data types, access control and many other advanced features
• High-performance scalable architecture supporting up to 200,000 entries and up to 100,000 queries/hour on typical servers
• Support for replication between multiple directory servers using the LDAP protocol, and selective replication for replicating portions of the directory
• Support for LDAP, or Internet RFC1777, including enhancements developed at the University of Michigan
   
• Compliant with X.500 directory servers supporting the Directory Access Protocol (DAP)
   
• Integration with Netscape Certificate Server, also announced today, for the storage and management of enterprise-wide X.509 keys
• Integration with the new Netscape Mail Server 2.0 for the resolution and routing of encrypted electronic mail
   
• Cross-platform, open administration and seamless integration with Netscape SuiteSpot suite of Web server software for the enterprise
• Security features based on the SSL 3.0 open protocol for Internet security.

Netscape also plans to support LDAP in future versions of Netscape SuiteSpot and Netscape Navigator client software. LDAP-compliant address book and electronic mail applications in Netscape Navigator will provide users easy access to Netscape Directory Server and other LDAP-compliant directory servers. Netscape's products will also include support for attributes in the Versit Consortium's "vCard" specification for electronic business cards. VCards make it easy for individuals or corporations to exchange contact and directory information in a universally-recognized format.

Under the LDAP protocol, corporate directory entries are arranged in a hierarchical structure that reflects geographic and organizational boundaries so that companies can map their corporate directory to their actual business processes. Entries representing countries appear at the top of the tree and below them are entries for states or national organizations. Below them appear entries representing departments, people, printers and documents, making it easy to find the information a corporate user needs to conduct business over a network. In addition, LDAP's

connectivity to X.500 enables customers to utilize Netscape Directory Server or other LDAP based software in conjunction with existing directory services.

"The lack of a global directory interface has significantly impeded the deployment of enterprise applications and has caused significant pain to the end-user community for far too long," said Larry Gauthier, chairman of the Network Applications Consortium Strategic Interest Group on Directories. NAC's members include Compaq Computer, Continental Grain Co., MCA, Pacific Gas & Electric and the World Bank. "This announcement by Netscape and other industry leaders is a significant step forward in solving the directory chaos that exists today," added Gauthier. NAC, a strategic end-user organization dedicated to improving the interoperability of mission-critical applications in a heterogeneous inter-enterprise computing environment, published a position paper on directory services supporting LDAP in July 1995 and is focused on influencing vendors to move in this direction.

The LDAP technology Netscape adopted was derived from software and algorithms developed and tested over many years under rigorous work loads at the University of Michigan, where it was servicing more than 5 million queries per week of more than 100,000 university listings. Continuing on Netscape's tradition of drawing on the work of the best and brightest university talent, Netscape and the University of Michigan will continue to work together to extend the LDAP technology even further. A number of the key university researchers will join Netscape to implement this close relationship. Other companies are invited to work with the university as Netscape is doing, to facilitate the further implementation and deployment of LDAP.

"We are very excited that Netscape has chosen to use our technology," said Kitty Bridges, director of product development and deployment for the University of Michigan Information Technology Division. "It is good for the Internet and it is good for the University of Michigan. It will make it easier for people to find the information they need on the Internet."

Netscape Directory Server is scheduled to be available on Microsoft Windows NT and major UNIX platforms by the third quarter of 1996. The product is expected to be available as part of future versions of Netscape SuiteSpot. Individual product pricing is expected to be $995; final pricing will be announced at the time of product release.

The University of Michigan, a leader in the use of technology in education, has a student enrollment of 51,000 and more than 5,600 faculty on three campuses. It supports the largest research program of any university in the country, with more than $400 million in annual research expenditures, and its academic programs are consistently ranked among the top in the nation.

Netscape Communications Corporation is a premier provider of open software for linking people and information over enterprise networks and the Internet. The company offers a full line of clients, servers, development tools, and commercial applications to create a complete platform for next-generation, live online applications. Traded on NASDAQ under the symbol "NSCP," Netscape Communications Corporation is based in Mountain View, California.

Additional information on Netscape Communications Corporation is available on the Internet at http://home.netscape.com, by sending email to info@netscape.com, or by calling 415/528-2555 (corporate customers) or 415/528-3777 (individuals).