For Immediate Release
Contact:
Liliana Avila
Marketing Communications Manager
avila@franz.com
(510) 548-3600, x113

Lisp emerging as "the language of e-commerce." Cadrabra, others built using Allegro CL

Berkeley, CA (July 12, 2000)—The recent high profile sale of Cadabra Inc. to GoTo.com (NASDAQ: GOTO) indicates a trend; lucrative e-commerce applications are successfully being built with Allegro CL and the programming language Lisp.

The success of Cadabra Inc., whose acquisition by GoTo.com was recently completed, is not an isolated case. Several other web-based companies are also building e-commerce and internet applications using Lisp and Allegro CL (the leading Common Lisp development environment). "They have all discovered that Allegro CL can help solve problems other technologies can't." says Fritz Kunze, CEO of Franz Inc. "Three critical properties inherent in Lisp make it a great solution for e-commerce applications. First, Lisp's internal list-based structure makes catalog-like applications easy to program. Second, Lisp's unique self-adapting nature means an application can learn from shoppers without explicit programming. Third, programmers can modify/fix applications while they are running, eliminating revenue-losing downtime."

Company founders Narinder Singh and Donald Geddis used Allegro CL to invent a flexible data normalization technology called "Dynamic Data Integration (DDI)," a parametric search engine that allows consumers to comparison-shop online using everyday terminology and techniques. Their technology overcomes one of the most difficult problems facing today's e-commerce developers—the integration of disparate databases —enabling accurate, relevant product, price and product attribute comparisons.

Geddis says that Allegro CL and Lisp contributed to their success via increased productivity, reliability and performance. "The issue was how much production code can two people write in the shortest amount of time? Allegro CL gave us a way to get a lot done with limited resources," emphasizes Geddis. "We also needed the stability of a mature language like Common Lisp and we were impressed with the great performance we got with Allegro CL's optimizing native-code compiler. Our engineering team was astounded by the superior quality that Lisp offered," he adds

Franz Inc.'s products enable developers to build complex, flexible and scalable applications quickly, easily and cost-effectively. Founded in 1984, Franz Inc. has demonstrated consistent growth and profitability. For more information, call 1-888-CLOS NOW or email info@franz.com.

For more information about GoTo.com, please visit their web site at http://www.GoTo.com.

Allegro CL is a registered trademark of Franz Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.