-MUSCAT: Muscat offers a lifeline to PLS customers.

M2 PRESSWIRE-23 September 1998-MUSCAT: Muscat offers a lifeline to PLS customers (C)1994-98 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

RDATE:220998

-- America Online Lessens its Support to the PLS Market

Muscat today announced a seamless Personal Library Software (PLS) migration path for all existing PLS customers. The new product and service has been launched in response to America Online's (AOL) acquisition of the software company earlier this year.

Muscat's new PLS Gateway will integrate, with its market leading knowledge retrieval system - Muscat FX. Muscat FX offers a powerful, open and scalable software environment for creating and sharing knowledge. It works with information held in a wide range of data formats - on fileservers, intranets, the Internet and in the databases of the leading on-line information providers.

Muscat FX offers an intuitive and adaptable search environment that combines natural language searching with boolean and structured search techniques. It uses a unique combination of reference tools to maximise the relevance and quality of the information delivered to users, facilitating the process of knowledge creation.

Earlier this year, AOL announced its acquisition of PLS, which had direct implications on PLS's worldwide customer base, who range from large corporate organisations to small publishing houses. Muscat's new gateway enables PLS customers to retain their existing PLS databases and benefit from the full set of features offered by Muscat Fx.

Chris Nowell, chief executive for Muscat, said: "Muscat is the only company in Europe to offer an entirely seamless migration path for PLS customers. Although PLS is today rather outdated compared with products like Muscat FX, the software has been available across Europe for many years and there are thousands of companies that are still heavily dependent on it.

Nowell continued: "We now have a product offering that is technically more advanced and functionally richer than anything else on the market. We are determined to offer companies tangible solutions for all their business requirements through our strategy of aggressive product development, building upon our unique Linguistic Inference technology.

A standard licence for Muscat FX entitles customers to index and search data stored on one server, such as a fileserver, an intranet server, a Web server or a competitor's Web server. Muscat FX licences are available from GBP 4,000 and can be easily extended to fully exploit the unrivalled scalability of Muscat FX.

Founded in 1995, Muscat now has over 300 corporate installations worldwide and is headquartered in Cambridge, UK. In 1998, it opened its first European office in Holland and intends to open distribution channels across Europe. In 1997, the Dialog Corporation, the world's largest information provider acquired a 70% stake in Muscat, recognising it as a leading provider of solutions for knowledge management.

CONTACT: Caroline Howlett/Jessica Norrie, Profile Public Relations Tel: +44 (0)181 948 6611 e-mail: carolineh@profilepr.co.uk e-mail: jessican@profilepr.co.uk

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