PRESS - INFORMIX TAKES FIRST PLACE IN ON-LINE HELP CONTEST WITH INFORMIX-NEWERA

INFORMIX TAKES FIRST PLACE IN ON-LINE HELP CONTEST WITH INFORMIX-NEWERA Company Wins Over 30 Other International Entries Menlo Park, Calif., (September 5, 1995)-- Informix Software Inc., (NASDAQ:IFMX) today announced that the company's graphical development environment, INFORMIX(R)-NewEra(TM), has taken first place in an on-line help contest sponsored by Bristol Technology, makers of HyperHelp(TM), a Windows-compatible help system for OSF Motif. Under an extensive set of judging criteria gauged by 15 Bristol Technology judges, NewEra took first place over 30 other entries from around the world. "We had a long list of requirements for our contestants to meet, and Informix took the overall lead based on its clean, uncluttered design, and professional use of various on-line help features," said John Yonsky, product manager of HyperHelp at Bristol. "Informix places a big emphasis on the on-line help functionality in NewEra," said Todd Katz, manager of the NewEra On-Line Help team at Informix. "HyperHelp provides the underlying technology to help Informix bring a Windows-like on-linehelp system to our UNIX-based NewEra programmers. This gives Informix the distinct advantage of being able to provide our users with a common help facility across Windows and Motif platforms." The NewEra On-Line Help facility provides context-sensitive support for NewEra tools and utilities. With the On-Line Help system, developers can mouse click their way into an integrated on-line help facility that also gives access to a number of on-line reference volumes, such as INFORMIX-NewEra Graphical and Connectivity Reference, CCL/ODBC Reference, NewEra Class Reference, Error Reference and Glossary. According to Yonsky, Informix placed at the top of the list in these and other top judging criteria areas: -- On-line Help System Creation - Informix's On-Line Help system takes an 'on-line help centric' approach where users can access easy-to-read summary information that is very specific to the context of help they need. Other software providers may use a 'document centric approach,' which is on-line help text that is pulled directly from the documentation, making for very lengthy, non-specific, detailed information, that may not be conducive to the programmer's needs, and not very effective. -- Graphics Usage - Graphics in an on-line help environment can move the programmer along quickly in making decisions and understanding the nature of what to do next. Informix's On-Line Help facility decreases the learning curve of the user by using graphics to help programmers visually understand how to do a specific programming function. -- Use of HyperHelp Features -- Informix's On-Line Help system takes full advantage of HyperHelp's features such as jumps, pop-ups, and secondary windows.These features guide the user to other integrated pieces of information they mayneed to help them through a programming situation. -- Overall System Continuity -- Informix's OnLine Help facility rated the highest in the areas of text, graphics, and grammar usage continuity by maintaining a consistent look and feel from one on-line help window to the next. About INFORMIX-NewEra INFORMIX-NewEra is Informix's object-oriented client server application development environment for enterprise computing. The product features a powerful and flexible database application language, and productive visual programming tools which include an application builder to graphically manage application components; a window painter to streamline the building of graphicalapplications; and an interactive debugger to analyze and debug NewEra programs in a graphical environment. The product also supports reusable class libraries as well as open connectivity to Informix and non-Informix relational databases. About Bristol Technology Ridgefield, Connecticut-based Bristol Technology Inc. develops, markets and supports the Wind/U(R) family of Windows-to-UNIX cross-platform development products. In addition to Wind/U, its products include HyperHelp, software for creating UNIX-based on-line help systems with WinHelp functionality; and Xprinter (TM), software for adding sophisticated printing capabilities to UNIX-based applications. About Informix Informix Software is the leading supplier of high performance, parallel processing database technology, for open systems. The company's database serversare the number one choice of computer hardware manufacturers for publishing Transaction Processing Council (TPC) benchmarks for UNIX-based systems. Informixproducts also include application development tools for creating client/server production applications, decision support systems, and ad-hoc query interfaces, and connectivity software that allows information to be shared transparently from PCs to mainframes within the corporate computing environment. The company's corporate headquarters is in Menlo Park, California. More information about Informix is available via the World Wide Web: http://www.informix.com/. ### -- -- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% William Daul Advanced Support INFORMIX SOFTWARE INC. 4100 Bohannon Dr. (415) 926-6488 - wk Menlo Park, CA. 94025 uunet!infmx!billd or billd@informix.com