Award in the Press

AWARD SOFTWARE INTERNATIONAL® INC.
ACQUIRES WILLOWS SOFTWARE MIDDLEWARE
FOR EMBEDDED, REAL-TIME AND UNIX SYSTEMS

Mountain View, Calif. -- Award Software International Inc. (Nasdaq:AWRD), a leading provider of system management software (SMS), today announced that it has acquired certain of the assets of Willows Software. Willows technology is used to migrate Windows applications to alternative platforms.

The Willows Toolkit for UNIX and Willows RT for Embedded Systems, now called APIAccess™, extends Award's offerings of building blocks for embedded systems. Award also gains distribution relationships for APIAccess with several leading Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) suppliers, including Wind River Systems and QNX.

"Adding APIAccess to our product portfolio is consistent with our strategy to become the leading supplier of building blocks for manufacturers of embedded systems," said George Huang, president and CEO of Award. "We believe that with this acquisition, no other company can match Award's product breadth."

APIAccess consists of embeddable libraries, which are functionally equivalent to those supplied with the Windows 95 or Windows NT operating systems. These products are optimized to run on non-Windows operating systems, including many popular RTOS and UNIX systems. Most Windows applications can be easily recompiled on a target system, giving the environment a Windows look and feel, but with native performance.

Award Software International Inc. is the leader in worldwide BIOS shipments. BIOS is the cornerstone system management software (SMS) product that Award designs, develops and markets to the manufacturers of desktop, server, mobile and embedded systems. Additional Award SMS products include the SMSAccess™ suite of applications for remote, streamlined system management, designed to reduce total cost of ownership. The company's PC Card (PCMCIA) enabling software for DOS, Windows 3.x, and Windows NT is CardWare®. Award continues to expand its research and development efforts to create innovative new products for the growing computer and embedded systems industries.

The company's stock is traded on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol AWRD. More information can be obtained from the company's SEC filing or by visiting Award's Web site at http://www.award.com.

The statements in this news release, other than the historical financial information, may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from predicted results. Further information on factors that could affect the company's results are detailed in Award's final prospectus dated October 25, 1996, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

CONTACTS:
Kevin Berry, CFO
Award Software International

Anna Yen
Jessica Mussallem
Stapleton Communications Inc.