Attention Business and Technology Editors:

SOPHOS ACQUIRES ANTI-SPAM SPECIALIST ACTIVESTATE:
Combined company poised for global leadership in enterprise anti-virus
and anti-spam protection

Lynnfield, MA and Vancouver, BC - September 24, 2003 - Sophos, a world
leader in anti-virus protection for businesses, today announced that it
has acquired ActiveState, a North American software company that
develops anti-spam software for enterprises and professional tools for
open source language programmers.

Driven by mounting pressures to ensure a secure and low-cost
infrastructure, organizations are increasingly demanding consolidated
protection against security threats such as viruses, spam and policy
breaches. The transaction, worth $23 million in cash, thrusts Sophos
into the leading position in meeting the expanding secure content
management needs of businesses worldwide.

ActiveState is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, and serves more
than two million customers, including HP, Intel and Microsoft.  Sophos
has purchased all the shares of ActiveState and will retain all of
ActiveState's 100-plus employees.  ActiveState's headquarters in
Vancouver will become an additional center for research and development
for Sophos and will also provide local market support in Canada as well
as expanding Sophos's west coast support.

ActiveState's product lines for open source programmers will continue to
be developed and sold under the ActiveState brand. As a division of
Sophos, the existing ActiveState team is committed to continuing its
support of the open source language community.

Industry analysts Gartner Inc. claim that up to 50 percent of the
average business mailbox is spam.(1) Although both the US and UK
governments are proposing legislation against spammers, the problem is
threatening to swamp businesses, preventing them from operating
efficiently.  Acquiring ActiveState leaves Sophos well positioned to
meet enterprise demands for consolidated email protection. As Arabella
Hallawell, research director, Gartner Inc., reports, "There is growing
enterprise demand for combined anti-spam and anti-virus product and
service capabilities at the email boundary." 

Industry analysts Ferris Research agree. "Sophos and ActiveState have a
shared vision, strong and complementary products, and a similar culture
of engineering excellence," says David Ferris, president, Ferris
Research. "Enterprises increasingly look to a single vendor for
protection against spam and viruses at the gateway, so the acquisition
of ActiveState by Sophos makes a lot of sense."

"The proliferation of spam, combined with our existing customers'
increasing desire to receive anti-virus and anti-spam protection from
the same source, means that now is a very strategic time for us to
expand into spam filtering," said Peter Lammer, founder and joint CEO of
Sophos.  "With a focus on serving business environments, ActiveState has
a very similar company culture to Sophos.  There is also a good
technical fit between both companies' proprietary technologies.
ActiveState's proven technology, its impressive customer base, its
expertise in the open source world, and in particular the quality of its
staff are very valuable additions to Sophos." 

ActiveState's President, Steve Munford, will be taking a key role in
driving the anti-spam element of Sophos's business, becoming a member of
the executive management team.  Munford takes the post of Global VP
Messaging and will attend Sophos Plc board meetings.

"For the last three years, Sophos has significantly outperformed the
anti-virus market as a whole.  This impressive growth is a reflection of
Sophos's unwavering focus on the enterprise market and its commitment to
customer service," said Munford. "These qualities combined with our
proven technology means that the company is well placed to meet the IT
security needs of businesses.  We are excited to be joining the Sophos
team."

Sophos's anti-virus technology will be integrated with PureMessage,
ActiveState's enterprise email protection software, to deliver
industry-leading anti-virus and anti-spam protection in a single,
consolidated solution - Sophos PureMessage. PureMessage currently
supports AIX, HP-UX, FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris. For more information
please see http://www.sophos.com/products/pm/

(1)James Lundy, Maurene Caplan Grey, and Arabella Hallawell,  "Stop Spam
from Killing Workforce Productivity," September 22,  2003.

About Sophos
Sophos is a world leading specialist developer of anti-virus and
anti-spam software.  Headquartered in the UK, the company protects
businesses and organisations - from small enterprises to governments and
global corporations - against viruses and spam.  Sophos is acclaimed for
delivering the highest level of customer satisfaction and protection in
the industry.  The company's products are sold and supported in more
than 150 countries. http://www.sophos.com

About ActiveState Corp
ActiveState, a division of Sophos, enables enterprises and IT
professionals to increase productivity and organisational efficiency
through the innovative use of open source technologies.  Over two
million developers rely on ActiveState's open source language
programming tools, language distributions, and enterprise support
services.  http://www.activestate.com.

Media & Analyst Inquiries:
Lori Pike, ActiveState
LoriP@[...].com 
604.808.6655

Katey Stewart, Horn Group
kstewart@[...].com
312.371.9973

ActiveState and PureMessage are trademarks of ActiveState, a division of
Sophos. All other company names herein may be trademarks of their
respective owners. 

Copyright 2003 ActiveState, a division of Sophos.

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