VSNT Versant Corp. (MM)

Versant Corporation (Nasdaq:VSNT), an industry leader in specialized data management software, today announced the release of version 8 of its flagship product, the Versant Object Database (VOD).

VOD 8 is a major upgrade from its predecessor, VOD 7, providing enhanced support for high performance computing multi-CPU/multi-core server architectures, significant optimizations in internal memory management and caching implementations, and updates to its standard programming interfaces for Java/Java Data Objects (JDO) and Microsoft.NET.

"VOD 8 is another important technological milestone for Versant," said Jochen Witte, CEO of Versant. "The performance and scalability of our enterprise database server with VOD 8 allows our solution to outperform the relational database competition by an order of magnitude in complex database applications."

Pole Position, which provides an open source benchmark test suite, demonstrates that VOD 8 performs an average of 10 times faster compared to leading relational databases. In addition, internal scalability benchmark results with VOD 8 show that a system may take full advantage of high performance multi-CPU/multi-core server architectures with linear throughput up to the maximum capacity of all utilized cores, making VOD 8 a premier choice for demanding enterprise and high performance computing applications.

What Customers Say About VOD 8

"We've converted our MS-SQL Server.Net application to Versant Object Database.NET and we've seen a 1,000 percent improvement in our data read/write speeds," said Jonathan Larouche, senior software architect at Gestion Vision Globale, Inc., an enterprise software company located in Quebec, Canada. "We have calculated that we will make our call center more efficient and will also have a positive impact with order processing on our customer website."

VOD 8 - A Mature Mainstream Database

In general, object oriented application development (OOAD) has matured over the past 10 years and is now considered mainstream. Microsoft is embracing OOAD with its latest .NET application framework, which includes new object oriented programming interfaces for databases, most notably LINQ (Language Integrated Query) and ADO.NET's Entity Framework. VOD's new software development kit for the Microsoft .NET Framework is fully integrated with ADO.NET and LINQ and will create exciting new opportunities and markets for the Versant Object Database by simplifying the adoption of an Entity Framework based approach to application development.

VOD 8 also offers various enhancements to JDO, the existing Java database standard, including upgrading the Versant JDO software development kit compatibility to the latest JDO 2.0 standard.

A Breakthrough in Developer Productivity and Database Performance

Application developers are creating sophisticated applications for complex markets including telecommunications, high performance computing, financial services and computer simulation. Increasingly complex data models are demanding higher performance and scalability from the database tier. Breaking up these complex data models into tables for SQL databases, while at the same time achieving performance and scalability requirements, has become a daunting task for the developer.

With VOD 8, the developer can focus work efforts on the application and its domain model. VOD 8 will handle the required persistence services, providing performance and scalability, while managing availability and demand requirements created by increasing concurrency and growing data volume. Program coding by the developer may be reduced by an average of 40 percent with VOD 8, with performance often 10 times faster than traditional database systems.

Platform Support and Availability

VOD 8 is now available for all primary operating system platforms, including Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, Red Hat Linux 5.3, Sun Solaris 5.10 (Ix86 and Sparc) and HP-UX 11.x (Itanium).

About Versant

Versant Corporation (Nasdaq:VSNT) is an industry leader in database management software, helping software developers to create unique applications handling complex information and high performance / high availability requirements. Versant customers cut hardware costs, speed and simplify development, and significantly reduce administration costs. Versant's solutions are deployed in a wide array of industries, including telecommunications, financial services, transportation, manufacturing, and defense. With over 100,000 installations, Versant has been a highly reliable partner for Global 2000 companies such as Ericsson, Verizon, Siemens, US Government and Financial Times.  For more information, call 650-232-2400 or visit www.versant.com.

CONTACT: Nadel Phelan, Inc.

         Heidi Rosenberg

         831-440-2405

         heidi@nadelphelan.com

         

         Versant Corporation

         Jerry Wong, Chief Financial Officer

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