ANNOUNCE(OpenSTA): PR - CYRANO announces OpenSTA 1.0 General Availability

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CYRANO announces OpenSTA(tm) 1.0 General Availability=20
as well as the availability of associated service offerings.

Training classes, Consulting, Support Agreements,=20
CD and Documentation Set are now available for purchase.

1 March 2001 =96 Boston, MA =96 CYRANO today announced the=20
general availability of OpenSTA 1.0 the first free and=20
Open Source distributed testing environment that enables=20
you to perform realistic e-business applications heavy=20
load or stress tests with performance measurement.  CYRANO=20
also announced the details of the type of professional=20
services and purchase prices that they are now offering. =20
CYRANO has specifically designed the services for supporting=20
OpenSTA for any user - from the single user to the Fortune=20
1000 company. This is a direct result of feedback from the=20
over 3000 users of OpenSTA accrued since September 17th 2000=20
when OpenSTA 0.9.0 was originally released.

"The infrastructure that we have built up in the last 6 months=20
has been specifically customer-driven", said Noelle Beaudin,=20
Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Development. "This=20
is not customers in the traditional sense.  These are business=20
leaders that see the value in paying directly for services=20
instead of licenses. CIOs have realized the return on investment=20
with implementing an open and quickly evolving solution for their=20
IT staff, while highly technical users of OpenSTA have provided=20
valuable feedback on the ease of use of OpenSTA and how best=20
Support can be offered.  All of our service offerings have been=20
designed directly from this customer feedback and this is something=20
that CYRANO will continue to do."

CYRANO Services for OpenSTA, pricing and where to purchase
As of March 1 2001, the following services will be offered=20
through CYRANO:

Support Agreements
---------------------
Support agreements are offered so that users of OpenSTA are=20
guaranteed resolution of bugs that they report, and can be=20
provided with immediate access to a Help Desk. Special=20
distribution version will be available for customers of=20
Support Agreements.

Corporate Support Agreement =96 RRP US$30,000
 - Yearly renewable contract
 - Special distributions and fixes=20
 - Unlimited amount of users that can contact the Support Dept.=20
 - Coverage and reporting during extended Support hours

Incident-based Support Agreement =96 RRP US$2,500
 - Up to ten incidents
 - A single contact person can be assigned to contact the Support Dept.
 - Coverage and reporting is limited to standard business hours (9-5).

CYRANO anticipates that in the future, this agreement will be offered=20
for on-line sign up at http://opensta.com/.


Training: Performance Testing Web Sites using OpenSTA
-----------------------------------------------------

This training course has been specifically designed to aid users=20
in understanding how to test web applications and how best to utilize=20
OpenSTA in their specific testing scenarios.  Details of the course=20
outline can be found at http://opensta.com/.

 - $1500 for the two day Course. The 3 Day (Advanced Course) is $2000.=20
 - Ten students maximum.
 - Course can be given on-site. If so, expenses for the Trainer=20
must be paid, a suitable location must be utilized.


Web Performance Testing Consulting: RRP US$2200/per day
-----------------------------------------------------

For over 15 years CYRANO has been in the Performance Testing industry. =20
CYRANO has built an entire methodology around Web Performance Testing. =20
This benefits all organizations, even if they do not choose to use the=20
OpenSTA product.

CYRANO Consultancy takes the mystery out of application performance=20
measurement, analysis and implementation. These advanced professional=20
service offerings build on CYRANO's longstanding experience in the=20
application testing marketplace to help customers determine the right=20
way to test for their organizations and establish long-term strategies=20
for ongoing reliability of business critical applications.

So that Project managers, IT managers and their staff can build testing=20
implementation processes that are mapped to business objectives, gain=20
understanding of tools that aid them in the recreation, measurement and=20
analysis of application performance issues, so that system changes and=20
system deployment can meet established timelines.


OpenSTA 1.0 Documentation set and CD (Boxed set): RRP US$250
-----------------------------------------------------------

The OpenSTA 1.0 Boxed set includes:
 - CD of OpenSTA 1.0
 - HTTP Load User Guide
 - SCL Reference Guide
 - SCL Reference Card
 - Information on obtaining 30-day email only installation support.

To order the boxed set, go to http://opensta.com/box/.  You can=20
order it on-line and it will be shipped to your door.


Feature enhancements: Billed according to Developer Time
--------------------------------------------------------

If a customer of OpenSTA requests a specific feature enhancement to=20
OpenSTA, a CYRANO Developer can produce a contract based on the=20
amount of time to produce this feature enhancement. The enhancement=20
may then be rolled out to the customer, and Development owns the right=20
to put this enhancement into OpenSTA or not.
=20

Future Offerings around OpenSTA
-------------------------------

"CYRANO wants to be able to achieve something that has never been=20
done before in the web-application testing and analysis marketplace."=20
Said Noelle Beaudin, Vice President of Marketing and Corporate=20
Development.  "We want to be in the position to provide an entire=20
long-term strategy for all business users.  This means providing a=20
specific solution for everyone that is involved in a web-application,=20
not just the performance testing and monitoring aspects."

"As part of the future OpenSTA strategy, business users will be=20
able to plug-in new commercial components that build onto the=20
existing core architecture and central repository so that as=20
their web application environment grows, so too can their single=20
solution for testing, monitoring, and analysis.  This theory allows=20
business users to use OpenSTA for both Development and Quality=20
Assurance, through to Production, and on to Management making it=20
the only tool designed to uniquely fit the needs of Test Engineers,=20
DBAs, WebMasters and CIOs."

"We are already near to history in the making." Said Robert Ernens,=20
Chairman and CEO of CYRANO. "In the next several weeks we will be=20
releasing the details of what is to come.  For me personally, this=20
is the beginning of a new era in CYRANO.  And one that will be as=20
exciting as the last 5 months."


Contact
--------

Noelle Beaudin
+ 1 800 714 4900
+ 1 978 462 4755
mailto:no...@cy...