COMPUTER ASSOCIATES UNICENTER TNG IMPROVES RELIABILITY OF DATA PROCESSING OPERATIONS FOR BARNES & NOBLE

CA eBusiness Management Software Provides Single Point of Control Over Widely Dispersed Network Operations

ISLANDIA, N.Y., December 7, 2000 — Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA) today announced that Barnes & Noble, Inc. has selected CA's Unicenter TNG to streamline the business operations it depends on to run its bookselling business, at corporate headquarters and within hundreds of retail stores.

Barnes & Noble (http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/) is the world's largest bookseller, with more than 900 physical bookstores. Of these stores, 559 operate under the Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Bookstop and Bookstar trade names and 378 operate under the B.Dalton Bookseller, Doubleday Book Shops and Scribner's Bookstore trade names. Barnes and Noble has 40 percent ownership of Barnes & Noble.com, the largest bookseller on the Web.

According to Tom Giancaspro, Barnes & Noble director, technical services, the company sought a comprehensive systems management solution to monitor the computers that host business-critical applications. "Unicenter TNG constantly watches our computer servers and business processes to maintain outstanding performance and availability within our production environment, freeing our system administrators for more important tasks," said Giancaspro.

"We considered solutions from several vendors before selecting CA's Unicenter TNG," said Anthony Cappiello, Barnes & Noble manager, operating systems. "We chose Unicenter TNG for its outstanding network monitoring, operations management and Help Desk facilities. We also wanted to build cohesion with our retail stores, which are also in the process of rolling out Unicenter TNG components."

With the help of one part-time IT resource, Unicenter TNG was implemented to manage a network of servers from IBM, Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems. The servers coordinate sales and distribution activities throughout the Barnes & Noble network. Unicenter TNG ensures ongoing availability of these production systems by continually monitoring network, system, database and application performance and automatically taking corrective action if potential problems arise.

Unicenter TNG is also simplifying the transition from centralized to distributed computer processing. "As we adopted more types of servers and new types of distributed applications, we need a central point of monitoring and control," Cappiello explained. "We are accustomed to the robust systems management programs of the mainframe world and we wish to duplicate that same level of maturity and control in a distributed environment."

Individual retail stores within the Barnes & Noble network are rolling out Unicenter TNG technology by deploying G & Z Retail Systems Management Solution (GZ-RSM) — a powerful and affordable bundled application from G&Z Systems, Inc. "Retailers depend on highly sophisticated in-store computer equipment to manage their operations, yet they usually don't have on-site system administrators," noted Richard Zuckerman, G&Z Systems president. "They need a systems management package that can remotely monitor, troubleshoot and react to problems."

GZ-RSM is designed to handle the challenges of remote systems management encountered in retail environments by allowing system administrators to remotely control and manage crucial IT operations. "With Barnes & Noble rapidly expanding their operations, the ability to monitor and automatically react to mission critical events —- is a daunting task. With Unicenter TNG, it's a task we have well in hand."

The Unicenter TNG deployment is part of a major integration initiative that will provide new levels of service and convenience to the tens of millions of customers who shop in Barnes & Noble stores and at BarnesandNoble.com.

Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE: CA), the world's leading business software company, delivers the end-to-end infrastructure to enable eBusiness through innovative technology, services and education. CA has 19,000 employees worldwide and had revenue in excess of $6 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2000. For more information, visit http://ca.com.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS) operates 559 Barnes & Noble and 378 B. Dalton bookstores, and, with its acquisition of Babbage's Etc. and Funco, Inc., is the nation's largest operator of video game and entertainment software stores. Barnes & Noble stores stock an authoritative selection of book titles and provide access to more than one million titles. They offer books from more than 50,000 publisher imprints with an emphasis on small, independent publishers and university presses. Barnes & Noble is one of the world's largest booksellers on the World Wide Web (http://www.bn.com), and the exclusive bookseller on America Online (Keyword: bn). Barnes & Noble.com has the largest standing inventory of any online bookseller. Barnes & Noble also publishes books under its own imprint for exclusive sale through its retail stores and Web site.

G & Z Systems, Inc., a Computer Associates' North American value added distributor, was founded in February 1981 to provide multi-user business solutions. In 1995, G & Z was pleased to add the Unicenter TNG products to its arsenal of data transport and Enterprise Management solutions. Soon after, the company developed the GZ-RSM Retail Systems Management system retailer. This bundle of carefully selected Unicenter TNG components, along with key integration from G & Z Systems, brings at-a-glance management not only to the polling/data transport process, but to the management of headquarters and store servers and systems as well.

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© 2000 Computer Associates International, Inc. One Computer Associates Plaza, Islandia, N.Y. 11749. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

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