New entity to provide broad infrastructure of components and services for building web-based applications utilizing COM, Java and .NET environments

Cranbury, N.J., January 4, 2001 -- Sheridan Software Systems™, Inc., a leader in visual development components and tools for Microsoft's Visual Studio®, and ProtoView™ Development Corporation, a leader in Java® and ActiveX® components, have announced their merger. The new company, Infragistics™, Inc., will be headquartered in Cranbury, N.J. Infragistics will now constitute the largest privately held component vendor in that market space.

"As development environments mature from client/server to web-based application architecture, a new breed of components and corresponding services must evolve to support those development efforts. As we see the move from GUI components to multi-platform server-based components, the combined expertise of our two companies creates a powerful force to deliver and support this new generation of multi-platform products to the development community," says Infragistics CEO and President Dean Guida.

"Our goal, as has been the goal of both predecessor companies, is to provide professional developers with the fullest range and highest quality of components available," comments Bob Wolf, Infragistics Chairman and Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "As the Web becomes the core element in a corporation's critical business operation, the pressure on IT to produce more work more quickly will necessitate the increasing utilization of third-party components. This merger will result in a company with the vision and ability to deliver a multi-platform infrastructure of components and services on which corporate IT can rely."

Infragistics has merged COM products from both the Sheridan and ProtoView product lines into a new offering, Infragistics UltraSuite™, providing the "best-of-breed" products from each component category (see accompanying news release). Additionally, Infragistics will continue to support COM products from the two former companies outside UltraSuite, which will now be referred to as Classic Products. Infragistics will continue to publish and move forward with InterAct™, PowerChart™, JSuite™, and JFCSuite™, all formerly published under the ProtoView label. Infragistics is also committed to releasing components written in C# for the new Microsoft .NET environment later in the year.

"As the market for third party components matures and grows, the need for more sophisticated support and service structures to work with corporate clients increases as well. A combined effort will enable us to deliver this and a comprehensive product line," continues Guida. "The merger of our two companies is designed to provide a higher level of strategic relationship with corporate customers."

All corporate activities will be relocated to New Jersey, with a development lab facility remaining on Long Island, New York. The transition will take place over the next two months.

"We know our customers will be as excited as we are about this merger," says Wolf. "We will be contacting our respective customer bases to begin explaining how Infragistics will work with them to consolidate sales, service and support from the two former companies. Our desire is to make the transition as seamless for them as possible."

Infragistics products will continue to be sold through domestic and international partners such as ComponentSource, Corporate Software, Programmers Paradise, The Programmer's Supershop, and VBXtras.

About Infragistics
Formed through the merger of ProtoView Development Corporation and Sheridan Software Systems, Inc., Infragistics provides a broad infrastructure ofcomponents and services for building web-based applications utilizing COM,Java and .NET environments. Both Sheridan and ProtoView have been market leaders since the inception of the software component market in the early 1990s. Combined, the companies have received 185 product awards and industry vendor of the year awards from market-leading publications and resellers. Infragistics' diverse product line for COM and Java environments are used worldwide in nearly every Fortune 2000 company, over 85,000 corporations and 187,000 independent developers and consultants. Infragistics can be reached at 1-800-231-8588 and through its new web site, www.infragistics.com.

© Copyright 2002 Infragistics, Inc. All rights reserved. Infragistics, the Infragistics logo,S heridan Software Systems, ProtoView, UltraSuite, InterAct, PowerChart, JSuite and JFCSuite are trademarks of Infragistics, Inc. All other marks are either registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective holders.