AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 Pushes the Integration Envelope for Producer Platforms; New Release Incorporates IDEs, Data Transformation, Highly Extensible Event Framework.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 17, 2003

Demonstrating its commitment to providing the most open and productive platform for delivering J2EE applications, AltoWeb, Inc., the leading provider of application producer platforms, today announced the general availability of AltoWeb Xpi 3.0. Tightly integrated with Borland(R) JBuilder(R), the Xpi 3.0 platform enables dramatic enhancements to productivity in a familiar environment. In addition, runtime support for comprehensive data transformation and an extensible event framework simplifies and protects the integration of past, present, and future application technologies. AltoWeb's best-of-breed, vendor-agnostic solution enables customers to leverage their infrastructure, tools, and application environments to speed development and integrate assets.

"AltoWeb pioneered the producer platform market back in 2000," stated Ali Kutay, president and CEO of AltoWeb. "We've paid our dues, having worked through and learned from two previous generations. We believe that this new product is a quantum leap in terms of 'completeness' for an enterprise application lifecycle offering. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank our customers, technology partners, integrators, and analysts who have provided us with such valuable feedback throughout our efforts to bring the product to this level."

The response to AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 has been truly impressive. Several large financial services and aerospace and defense contractor companies participated in the AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 beta program and approved the general availability of AltoWeb's latest innovation.

AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 is the most mature J2EE producer platform available today, bringing to fruition a wealth of customer, partner, and industry analyst recommendations. In designing the product, AltoWeb took a traditional approach to providing a truly open, standards-based solution: leveraging the entrenched standards already in broad use among developers throughout the industry. AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 is a fully J2EE-compliant implementation, generating standard Java code and deploying applications through a runtime framework that is pre-built according to J2EE best practices. AltoWeb also provides out-of-the-box support for JMS and JSP, as well as all standards related to Web services. Other standard - or de facto standard - technologies implemented in AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 include Struts for JSP generation, and Castor for built-in O/R mapping.

IT management needs to increase productivity of their development teams without introducing proprietary technologies or solutions that might otherwise offend their advanced J2EE developers. As such, AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 generates well-written and reusable Java code, and enables explicit access to code and components through tight integration with IDEs. The first such integration is with the market-leading Java development environment, Borland JBuilder. This coupling is designed to provide application developers with a seamless experience when moving between visual assembly and lower-level coding. Developers are provided with the ability to easily create new components and integrate existing code - with full round-tripping support - without the need to leave the production studio environment. They can also take advantage of the source control integration and advanced code-level debugging features provided by the underlying IDE.

AltoWeb Xpi has been designed to facilitate developing applications in a service-oriented manner. Applications are comprised of loosely coupled, reusable, interacting parts, linked together through comprehensive data transformation capabilities. AltoWeb further simplifies this process through an innovative visual data mapping UI through which developers can quickly link data from a source to data in a destination using drag-and-drop techniques. For each mapping, they can define how the data is converted and what validation needs to take place. This single metaphor - carried out throughout all layers of an application - increases productivity while ensuring quality and robustness, and provides the flexibility to change and tune applications easily.

The extensible event layer in AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 provides built-in support for JSP events, JMS, and Web services, and enables development teams to incorporate additional assets into their AltoWeb applications, including new code, technologies, and APIs that become available in the future. The real power of the visual event model is that it is standardized and unified; all types of events can be created, linked, and mapped using the same approach. So, for example, once developers know how to work with the wizards to create JSP forms, they can use the same approach to work with JMS or Web services. They can also automatically incorporate new J2EE extensions into the architecture, which traditionally would have meant learning new APIs. Behind the scenes, though, the correct runtime for each event type is generated.

Other features of AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 include:

-- Comprehensive change impact analysis and application verification for rapid application maintenance

-- Visual application-level debugging with support for multiple event threads common in asynchronous JMS-based applications

-- Instant unit testing, logging, and component instrumentation

-- Visual Data Designer with built-in O/R mapping for rapid access to database information

-- Visual Logic Designer for assembly of application logic from components

-- Visual Application Designer for drag-and-drop assembly of complex J2EE applications

Availability

AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 for Borland JBuilder 8 is generally available today on BEA WebLogic Server 7.01 and Borland Enterprise Server 5.2, on both Windows and Linux platforms. All major databases are currently supported: Oracle, DB2, MS SQL Server, and Sybase. General availability of AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 running on IBM WebSphere 5.0, JBoss 5.2, and Oracle 9iAS is scheduled for 2Q03. General availability of AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 on Solaris, iSeries OS/400, and AIX is also scheduled for 2Q03. General availability of AltoWeb Xpi for the IBM Eclipse/WSAD integrated development environment is scheduled for 3Q03. For more information regarding certification on IDEs, application servers, or platforms, or to evaluate the AltoWeb Xpi 3.0 platform, please visit www.altoweb.com.

About AltoWeb Xpi 3.0

With AltoWeb Xpi 3.0, anyone who understands fundamental application design and development concepts can quickly assemble enterprise-level Java applications, while J2EE experts maintain explicit access to the standard Java code and descriptors that are generated. Built on the foundation of a leading IDE, AltoWeb Xpi provides a seamless transition between application assembly and traditional coding. AltoWeb automatically deploys applications through a powerful J2EE-compliant runtime framework that provides resource and transaction management, logging and instrumentation, and the foundation for the event handling framework with built-in support for JMS, JSP, Web services, database integration, and data mapping. The result: robust J2EE applications - delivered in a fraction of the time - that can be easily iterated, maintained, and deployed anywhere.

About AltoWeb

AltoWeb(R), Inc. is the leading provider of application producer platforms, dedicated to delivering to its customers and partners the simplest, most productive, and flexible approach to delivering J2EE applications. Global 2000 companies, systems integrators, and independent software vendors rely on AltoWeb to produce and enhance the applications they need, with the people they have, in much less time and at a lower total cost of ownership.

Built on open standards, AltoWeb delivers highly extensible and reliable software solutions that fully leverage the power of leading application servers including IBM(R) WebSphere(R), BEA(R) WebLogic(R) Server, Borland(R) Enterprise Server, and JBoss(R), as well as leading IDEs including Borland JBuilder(R). Based in Palo Alto, California, AltoWeb is privately held with investments from Accenture Technology Ventures, NorwestVenture Partners, CIBC, and individual investors. For more information or to download a free evaluation copy of AltoWeb Xpi, visit www.altoweb.com or call 650/251-1500.

Note to Editors: AltoWeb is a registered trademark of AltoWeb, Inc. in the United States and other countries. AltoServer, AltoStudio, AltoManager, and AltoMonitor are trademarks of AltoWeb, Inc. in the United States and other countries. J2EE and Java are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Borland and JBuilder are registered trademarks of Borland Software Corporation. All other trademarks referenced are those of their respective owners.