Metropolitan Holdings Selects Versant’s JDO Technology over EJB 2.1 and Proprietary POJO Solutions

Versant Corporation (NASDAQ: VSNT), an industry leader in specialized data management and data persistence software, today announced that the Employee Benefits Division (EB) of Metropolitan Life, one of the largest life insurance companies in South Africa, has decided to broaden the use of Versant Open Access to all its Java projects. Metropolitan EB will use Versant Open Access JDO to migrate its legacy applications to Java and to build new Java applications to support its future business requirements.

Metropolitan selected Versant Open Access JDO after a lengthy review of several solution options beginning first with EJB 2.1, and later comparing Versant to a popular proprietary open source solution. During the legacy to J2EE migration project’s proof of concept (using Servlets, JSPs, Entity, and Session beans), EJB showed unacceptable performance issues. After changing the architecture to use plain old Java objects (POJOs), Versant’s Open Access JDO and other proprietary open source solutions were considered for the persistence layer.

“We decided in favor of Versant Open Access JDO because it is based on a standard and includes a powerful query language that is much easier to use than the proprietary query language found in the open source product,” said Alesso Harri, Java architect at Metropolitan EB. “Versant Open Access JDO was endorsed over other JDO implementations because of its high performance, excellent RDBMS support, graphical workbench, and superior support.”

“Metropolitan’s in-depth analysis of EJB, proprietary open source, and Versant, followed by its ultimate selection of Versant Open Access JDO further proves the value of using a standard versus proprietary object-relational mapping tool,” said Robert Greene, vice president of product strategy at Versant. “We are delighted not only to win the approval of the in-house developers at Metropolitan, but also to enable them to deliver the kind of end-user performance required to meet the needs of their customers.”

About Metropolitan

Metropolitan EB is one of the subsidiaries of Metropolitan Holdings Limited – a group with more than 200 offices around the country, servicing millions of South Africans with a wide range of needs-based financial products.
Constantly adapting and developing to deal with tomorrow’s challenges, Metropolitan EB offers a wide range of tailor-made products in Investment, Retirement, Group Risk and Annuities. The team also consults, offering knowledge on, and assistance with, a variety of financial challenges.

About Versant Corporation

Versant Corporation (NASDAQ: VSNT) is an industry leader in specialized data management and open data access software. Using Versant's solutions, customers cut hardware costs, speed and simplify development, significantly reduce administration costs, and deliver products with a strong competitive edge. Versant’s solutions are deployed in a wide array of industries including telecommunications, financial services, transportation, manufacturing, and defense. With over 50,000 installations, Versant has been a highly reliable partner for over 15 years for Global 2000 companies such as British Airways, US Government, Financial Times, IBM, and MCI. For more information, call 510-789-1500 or visit www.versant.com .

Forward Looking Statements Involve Risks and Uncertainties

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the safe harbor created by those sections. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about the use of Versant’s technology by Metropolitan EB. Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, these forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, and there are important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These factors include, but are not limited to the risk that other customers may not obtain similar results, that competitive products may be developed which deliver superior results, that anticipated results may not materialize, and that Metropolitan EB may discontinue the use of Versant’s technology. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date of this press release and the Company assumes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause results to differ can be found in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's most recent Reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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