GrafxSoft Announces a Development, Licensing, and Marketing  Agreement for  CA-Clipper and CA-Visual Objects 

West Palm Beach, FL, April 22, 2002 – GrafXSoft (GrafX Software Development Tools) Announced today that they have reached a Development, Licensing, and Marketing Agreement with Computer Associates (CA) for two of their software development languages – CA-Clipper and CA-Visual Objects.  The CA logo will remain on the package, but the design, development, testing, and marketing of both products are now controlled by GrafXSoft. Despite changes in CA’s development master plan, CA recognizes that CA-Visual Objects is an important and widely used Windows development tool and is acting to continue active development through this agreement.

 Brian Feldman, President of GrafXSoft, stated  “This arrangement will continue CA-Visual Objects (CA-VO) as a viable and robust 32 bit development environment and allow us to improve VO for many years to come.”  Grafxsoft   is  enlisting the services and products of many well known CA-VO third-party developers to continue VO’s evolution. The following features are targeted for inclusion in the new 2.6 version of CA-VO:

1. Fortress TCP/IP Client/Server (by Loadstone Software
2. ReportPro Version 2.10 (by DataPro)
3. VO Productivity Pack (by Paul Piko)
4. VO COM (by Rod da Silva)
5. VO2ADO (by Robert van der Hulst)
6. VO2OutLook (by Ed Richard)
7. VO Script (by John Marshall)
8. Tag_it (by Tom Elledge)
9. CA-VO Software Development Kit (Computer Associates)

Following the 2.6 release, GrafXSoft will begin the design and testing of new features to be included in the next major release of CA-VO based on the VO community’s feedback. Mr. Feldman believes that this product now belongs primarily to the VO community and intends to guide its development toward many more successful releases.

 Quotes from CA-Visual Objects users:

 “This contract is the best move that could possibly be done for and with VO.  We at VOCA are very excited about the opportunities this deal opens to VO and the VO community. We are very confident that Brian will steer VO into a successful future. VOCA will continue its support for VO and closely work together with GrafXSoft.” As quoted by Oskar Schneider, editor of SDT magazine and VOCA spokesman.

 Ginny Caughey (main author of “Using Visual Objects” by Que and international speaker on VO) says:  “I am delighted to learn that Brian Feldman and Grafx Software will be taking over development of CA-Visual Objects and  CA-Clipper. Through the years, these products have become powerful mainstays for developers of business software. Brian continues this tradition and adds special insights of his own. As a longtime Clipper and VO developer, he understands what application developers need today in a way that a large corporation never could. As one of the developers of the data drivers inside both products, he is imminently qualified to take over maintenance and technical direction of the products. And as a reseller of developers’ tools to programmers all over the world, he knows what programmers want in the products they buy and how to market to them.”

 “This plan basically puts the future of Visual Objects in to the hands of the VO user community now.” said Tom Walden (co-author, speaker, and lead developer for Auditron Electronics).  “We have always contended that Visual Objects was one of CA’s best kept secrets, but in this unprecedented move on their part, CA is opening the window wide open for future enhancements and marketing potential of Visual Objects.  We couldn’t be more pleased with this decision!”

Robert van der Hulst (aka Mr. Data, with Solution Application Software in the Netherlands) has this to say:  “I am very happy that Brian managed to convince CA that the development of Visual Objects should continue. Visual Objects is a very productive development environment with tremendous potential.  Adding 3rd party solutions, such as the VO Productivity Pack to the product, is a very smart move on Brian’s part.  I hope that Brian manages to turn VO into the success story it deserves, and is also able to develop the product into the Dot.Net environment.  I wish Brian and his team lots of success.”

From Gary Stark (co-author of CA-Visual Objects Developers Guide by SAMS) has this to say about CA’s decision:  “Computer Associates has done a wonderful job in bringing Visual Objects to where it is today, where it remains the most elegant of solutions for the development of robust business applications. In addition to allowing VO to be more directly marketed within the small to medium development software industry, this intiative will also permit the language to extend well beyond where it is today, and fully embrace the technologies that are emerging for the future.”

 “The Software Developers Group Netherlands has great confidence in this initiative. Brian Feldman has always been there for the VO community, and we are convinced the future of both Clipper and Visual Objects is in capable hands. One of the strong points of the products has always been  the support from third parties. Brian will be able to channel that support, and certainly enhance and develop Visual Objects as a result.”  As quoted from Ed Richard, President of the Visual Objects section of SDGN (www.sdgn.nl)

About Computer Associates
Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE: CA) delivers The Software That Manages eBusiness. CA’s world-class solutions address all aspects of eBusiness management through industry-leading brands: Unicenter for infrastructure management, BrightStor for storage management, eTrust for security management, CleverPath for portal and business intelligence, AllFusion for application life cycle management, Advantage for data management and application development, and Jasmine for object-oriented database technology. Founded in 1976, CA serves organizations in more than 100 countries, including 99 percent of the Fortune 500 companies. For more information, visit http://ca.com.

About Grafx

GrafXSoft ... a world leader in the distribution of specialized database application development tools, was founded by Brian Feldman in 1989, as a company that contracted with 3rd party Clipper developers, providing sales and technical support for them.  After negotiating a contract for inclusion in CA-Clipper and CA-Visual Objects for Ganahl's FlexFile, and Loadstone's Comix and ClipMore, GrafXSoft's role changed considerably to become an international re-seller of database development tools, thereby guaranteeing a channel of distribution for products that we develop in the future.