ICL expands presence in Canadian market; announces strategic partnership with Systems Integrator...

RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 30, 1996--ICL Inc., a unit of $5 billion ICL PLC, on Monday announced a strategic partnership with Exocom, a Canadian systems integration company serving large organizations including the Canadian government.

Exocom's Remote Computer Division will expand

"Exocom offers a strong business presence in Canada and a well-established client base for which ICL's directory technology will be a natural fit," said Ed Harrington, director of marketing for ICL Inc.'s i500 Enterprise Directory Server. "Their systems integration expertise will quickly enable more businesses to benefit from the increased secure information access that i500 offers."

The agreement with Exocom will give ICL a complete added value partnership in the Canadian market. ICL will provide its i500 technology and directory systems expertise, and Exocom will integrate i500 in software solutions for its targeted customer base.

"A recent survey of the large organization customer showed a need for a highly scalable, high-performance directory server like i500 for solving specific business challenges," said Ron J. Mac Donell, president and chief executive officer of Exocom.

In order to determine the changing needs of customers, Exocom regularly conducts informal market surveys to assist the company in responding with the best products available in each category. It reviews analysts' reports, speaks to internal and external industry experts and companies successfully using the type of products being surveyed.

"i500 is a very relevant and solid technology that is ahead of the game," said Mac Donell. "Its scalability will enable it to serve our customers' needs for several years to come."

Providing a further benefit for Exocom's customers in Canada, ICL and Northern Telecom (Nortel) announced in April that the companies have successfully validated the interoperability of ICL's i500 directory technology with Nortel's Entrust public key encryption and authentication software.

About i500 (http://www.icl.com/hps/i500.html)

ICL's i500 Enterprise Directory Server is a 1993-conformant X.500 directory system that is first to support at least 3 million database entries on a single server with sub-second search response time. With its recently introduced i500 Version 6, ICL also became the first directory vendor to provide support for X.509 strong authentication.

Addressing the needs of intranet users, ICL in 1993 was among the first vendors to introduce the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), which has emerged as a standard.

The i500 directory can scale from entry-level support for under 2,000 entries to millions, held either on a single server or distributed across any combination of Unix or Windows NT servers throughout an organization.

About EXOCOM

Exocom is a full-service systems solutions provider serving the Canadian market since 1983. With offices in Toronto and Ottawa and 120 employees, the company projects its '96 sales to reach $10 million. Exocom's integrated technology solutions are targeted to niche markets and designed for users who require totally integrated solutions consisting of complementary software products, professional services and training.

About ICL

ICL is a leading European information technology company. Operating in over 80 countries, it supplies integrated systems and services which improve the performance of its customers' businesses.

ICL Inc., headquartered in Reston, is responsible for expanding the company's North American market share by developing strategic technology partnerships and channels of distribution for ICL's leading edge, enterprise software products.

CONTACT: ICL Inc.

Anne Prine, 714/855-5505

aprine@earthlink.net

or

Mesa Communications

Lauri Burrier, 310/246-9385

lburrier@earthlink.net