ASG Announces the Formation of the Legacy Innovation Group at Gartner Application Development Summit.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

Gartner AD Summit

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 22, 2003

Opinion Leaders Guide Tool Interoperability and Incorporating

Best Practices in Legacy Application Modernization

ASG, a worldwide enterprise software and professional services provider to Global 5000 companies, announced today its role as a founding member of the Legacy Innovation Group, a consortium composed of technology professionals to guide product development and services based upon industry best practices for modernizing legacy applications. The announcement came from the floor of the Gartner Application Development Summit 2003.

Representatives from consulting and technology vendors joined with ASG as founding members of the Legacy Innovation Group. Member organizations include:

-- ASG

-- Everware

-- Fair Isaac Corporation

-- Knowledge Partners, Inc. (KPI)

-- Soamai, Inc.

"Companies are challenged to manage all the changes required to modernize their legacy applications," said ASG Senior Director of Product Management Barbara Errickson-Connor. "This consortium will define the steps needed to accelerate the modernization process. As a team, we'll work together to ensure tools, methodologies and best practices are seamlessly integrated."

The Legacy Innovation Group will define the processes, methodologies and technologies required for enhancing the modernization process. Best Practices will be translated into specifications that will provide uniform guidelines to software vendors, integrators and consultants. Integrating best practices into multiple vendor services and product offerings will deliver seamlessly integrated products for automated modernization of legacy applications.

"At the end of the first meeting, the truth is the value of our shared experiences is tremendous," said Soamai Marketing Vice President Isabel Lefort. "We definitely must share this expertise with the industry, and deliver our consensus guidance to customers for their legacy modernization work."

The Legacy Innovation Group agreed that automating the steps of a modernization effort could save companies a significant amount of time. Member experiences indicate that at least six-to-eight weeks can be saved in the preparation process by combining tool automation with appropriate methods and techniques. Overall, time-saving for the entire process can amount to months, and for some companies, years of effort.

"I expect great things from the Legacy Innovation Group," said Barbara von Halle, Knowledge Partners, Inc. (KPI) founder and president. "I'm thrilled that KPI is a part of the team."

"The biggest barrier to a Business Rules Approach is that Business Rules today are embedded and locked up within legacy systems," said KPI Business Development Manager Janet Wall. "For many organizations, the first step toward unlocking the intellect of the company is to dig for existing rules in their legacy code. This can be an extremely lengthy and manual process. The good news is that we will have the tools and expertise for doing this."

"This founding meeting was a significant step forward. We all see the same problems with modernization projects, but we're looking at them from different directions," said Everware Project Director, Enterprise Architecture and Reuse Steve Olding. "Each member firm brought its unique perspective on modernization, and combined we solidified our commitment to bringing best-of-breed practices and products to companies needing to do legacy applications modernization."

"Companies have huge investments in legacy code and data," said Fair Isaac Director of Product Marketing James Taylor. "Being able to extract value from this by mining it for business rules and then developing agile, rules-based components delivers a great ROI."

Andrei Palskoi, Blaze Advisor solutions delivery manager at Fair Isaac, added, "The benefit of this approach is that it extracts business logic from a legacy application to make it more clear and manageable. In addition, you get a bonus by eliminating tons of dead/outdated code and freeing system resources wasted by it."

About ASG

ASG's business is to partner with clients to improve productivity and significantly enhance performance through the intelligent use of technology. Founded in 1986, ASG is a privately-held global enterprise software and professional services firm that provides a full range of software solutions in the Security Management, Applications Management, Operations Management, Information Management, Performance Management and Infrastructure Management arenas -- including business re-engineering, systems integration and systems development. ASG has 900 employees, $175 million in revenues, 7,000 customer sites, and 18,000 software licenses worldwide. ASG is headquartered in Naples, Florida, USA, with 40 offices throughout the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia/Pacific. For more information, visit ASG at http://www.asg.com.

About Everware

Everware is a leader in the emerging market for enterprise software components and application solutions assembled from components. Everware's component technologies and related consulting services allow customers to more quickly build and deploy higher-quality applications at a lower cost, as compared to traditional development. Everware's software architects have engineered and delivered a range of component-architected solutions for commercial and government customers worldwide. Everware is a privately held company headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia. More information about the company can be found at http://www.everware.com.

About Fair Isaac

Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FIC) is the preeminent provider of creative analytics that unlock value for people, businesses and industries. The company's predictive modeling, decision analysis, intelligence management, decision management systems and consulting services power more than 25 billion mission-critical customer decisions a year. Founded in 1956, Fair Isaac helps thousands of companies in over 60 countries acquire customers more efficiently, increase customer value, reduce fraud and credit losses, lower operating expenses and enter new markets more profitably. Most leading banks and credit card issuers rely on Fair Isaac solutions, as do insurers, retailers, telecommunications providers, healthcare organizations and government agencies. Through the www.myfico.com Web site, consumers use the company's FICO(R) scores, the standard measure of credit risk, to manage their financial health. As of August 5, 2002, the business of HNC Software Inc., a leading provider of high-end analytic and decision management software including Blaze Advisor, is part of Fair Isaac. http://www.fairisaac.com/edm

About KPI

Knowledge Partners, Inc. (KPI) is a privately held consulting firm founded in 1997 by Barbara von Halle. KPI is a group of full-time employees that are recognized leaders in Business Rules and Information Architecture. We have a national reputation for excellence and quality. We are leaders in the evolution of Business Rule principles and their practical application delivered through our Business Rule Systems Development Methodology (STEP(TM)). KPI's best selling book, Business Rules Applied, serves as a foundation for client success stories in diverse industries. KPI provides leadership in Business Rule methodology, capture and design, and system implementation in various Business Rule technologies. http://www.kpiusa.com/

About Soamai

Soamai, the French IT Assets Intelligence(R) software company, offers businesses software solutions that can enhance their IT assets. The company's flagship solution, the becubic(TM) software suite, enables the creation of a real portfolio of heterogeneous reusable objects (Web service, EJBs, .net), thus cutting development project costs by up to 60%. Soamai has almost 100 clients worldwide, mainly from the banking, insurance, and retail sectors: Barclays Bank, Credit Agricole, Credit Commercial de France, Credit Lyonnais, 3 Suisses, BHV, Casino, and EatOnLine. The company is an active member of the W3C and WS-I (Web Service Interoperability) international consortia. Visit http://www.soamai.com.

About Gartner AD Summit 2003

Nearly 600 IT executives, application-development decision makers and the world's leading software solutions and services providers are meeting in Los Angeles this week during Gartner Application Development Summit 2003, which is being held September 22-24 at the Westin Century Plaza Hotel.

The theme of this year's annual event is "AD at the Crossroads," focusing on what is a critical juncture for AD organizations as they face pivotal decisions that will have strategic, financial and competitive implications for many years to come. The three-day summit is exploring business processes, technologies, best practices and implementation case studies, with top industry experts and Gartner's world-renowned analysts. The program includes breakout sessions tailored to application development management, AD infrastructure, the economics of AD, and strategies for the AD future. Additional information about the conference is available at http://www.gartner.com/us/app_development.

Gartner, Inc. is a research and advisory firm that helps more than 10,000 clients leverage technology to achieve business success. Gartner's businesses are Research, Consulting, Measurement, Events and Executive Programs. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Conn., and has more than 3,800 associates, including approximately 1,000 research analysts and consultants, in more than 75 locations worldwide. Revenue for calendar year 2002 totaled $888 million. For more information, visit http://www.gartner.com.