Attunity B2B 2.0 Leads Industry in the Delivery of Web Services; New Product Features Lay Foundation for Dynamic Web Collaboration.

Business/Technology Editors

BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 12, 2000

Attunity Ltd. (NASDAQ:ATTU), a leading provider of B2B software solutions, today announced significant enhancements to its Attunity B2B(TM) process integration software, which enables companies to achieve end-to-end integration of business processes and enterprise systems over the Internet.

Delivering on the promise of Web Services, Attunity B2B 2.0 empowers companies to create, describe, and expose business functions as dynamic Web Services over the Internet. It also enables enterprises to discover each other's Web Services and integrate them into their own business processes in real time.

Attunity(TM) is the first to introduce Web Services process integration to the B2B marketplace, enabling companies to achieve their B2B initiatives in record-breaking time. Through Web Services process integration, enterprises can dynamically design, integrate, and improve their business models on the fly, advancing web collaboration to a new level.

Attunity is a leader in Web Services technology, a B2B architecture gaining rapid acceptance with the announcement and endorsement of the UDDI initiative by industry leaders, including IBM, Microsoft, Ariba, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and HP. Attunity B2B 2.0 leads the next wave in eBusiness by moving B2B relationships from point-to-point or tightly-coupled connections to totally open, dynamic web collaboration - for an extremely cost-effective way to respond immediately to changing business requirements.

"With this major enhancement, Attunity B2B 2.0 gives companies an easier way to establish, automate, and enhance more fluid B2B relationships, which are particularly crucial in today's increasingly competitive B2B environment," said Dr. Dov Biran, Chief Executive Officer of Attunity Ltd. "Our solution enables the development of an entirely new business model of collaboration -- one that truly reflects how businesses operate in the real world."

Attunity's B2B solution goes beyond current B2B initiatives because it promotes dynamically adaptable integration of all components of a B2B environment, including legacy systems and business processes -- on both ends of any exchange. For example, with Attunity B2B 2.0, a manufacturer can create a business process that begins with its own "new order" service. The process can continue with "check inventory" and "order products" Web Services from a supplier. Later, the manufacturer can add a financial institutions' "check credit" Web Service or change to a different freight company's "track shipment" Web Service, on the fly.

Attunity B2B 2.0 Features

Attunity B2B 2.0 delivers the foundation required for Web Services process integration with more prebuilt services, service and process packaging, dynamic adaptability, and EJB/JMS-based flexibility and interoperability:

Ability to reuse processes as services and Web Services. Leveraging SOAP, UDDI, Directories, and process-to-services capabilities, enterprises can create, modify, and reuse business processes as part of more complex, compound processes, maximizing the value of development efforts. For example, a fully functional process -- such as "order entry" -- can be a building block in other processes -- such as create "back order" and "inventory replenishment".

Dynamic adaptability. Companies can add, reuse, and modify new business processes and services without interrupting day-to-day operations, thanks to Attunity B2B's unique XML-based architecture. This feature enables organizations to respond immediately to changes in customer demands and supplier situations simply by updating business processes while the system is running and fully operational.

Breakthrough distributed processing. Attunity B2B Communities technology provides high reliability by defining logical clusters of servers that deliver B2B services to the enterprise. Attunity B2B 2.0 enhances these capabilities with server-side features that empower dynamic, intelligent load balancing and failover.

Expanded library of prebuilt services. Attunity B2B 2.0 includes an expanded library of ready-to-run, reusable B2BEngine services. These prebuilt, configurable, and reusable services include the basic function that companies need to accelerate B2B implementation. Process designers can drag-and-drop these services from the library, configuring them for specific processes -- without programming -- to deliver complex B2B solutions that automate interaction both within the enterprise and beyond the firewall.

New services optimize connections with Attunity Connect(TM) and CORBA, DCOM, COM, RMI, and SOAP components for swifter bidirectional integration with enterprise systems and Internet technologies. A new XSL service enables developers to manipulate XML documents -- for example, to produce HTML output -- without writing a line of code.

100% EJB and JMS compatibility. The Attunity B2BEngine and services are now EJB compatible, and all Attunity B2B processes use JMS messaging. In addition, Attunity B2B offers its own, optional EJB server and JMS messaging server.

EJB offers plug-and-play compatibility among all EJB-compliant IT components, so businesses can focus on processes rather than programming and can mix-and-match software from different vendors. Full EJB support enables Attunity B2B to operate in any EJB-compliant server, such as BEA WebLogic and Sun J2EE EJB servers. All major vendors, including IBM, have committed to support EJB, further extending the interoperability of Attunity B2B. In addition, Attunity B2B can use any JMS-compliant messaging systems, an industry-recognized specification adopted by all the leading messaging system providers.

About Attunity B2B

Attunity B2B enables enterprises to create, share, automate, and manage business processes with other companies over the Internet. Attunity B2B powers B2B process integration -- giving companies a faster, easier way to transform B2B initiatives into dynamic and effective real-world solutions.

Attunity B2B makes it easier to build B2B solutions, to integrate them with enterprise systems, and to deploy them most effectively across the Internet. Key components of Attunity B2B include the Attunity B2BEngine(TM) and the Attunity B2BDesigner(TM). The Attunity B2BEngine provides a process engine and a collection of integration services that together drive B2B process integration. The Attunity B2BDesigner is an independent Java-based client application.

Attunity B2BDesigner provides an intuitive, graphical development environment in which users can design and implement business processes and integrate them with partners, enterprise systems, and end users through web browsers, wireless devices, and other methods.

Attunity B2B processes can call Attunity Connect(TM), so organizations can incorporate mainframe, desktop, and web applications in any B2B solution. With Attunity Connect, companies can integrate back-office legacy systems, applications, and databases to each other and to the internet-driven eBusiness world.

The Attunity B2B solution enables companies -- including traditional brick-and-mortar businesses -- to encourage web collaboration, streamline operations, and lower costs at both ends of the value chain. Attunity B2B users can automate customer order processing, quotations and job bids, vendor selection, and any other tasks that involve intercompany transactions. They can gain a significant competitive edge by facilitating decisions made outside the organization -- involving partners, suppliers, and customers.

About Attunity Ltd.

Attunity is a leading provider of B2B solutions that deliver dynamic business process integration. Attunity gives enterprises the power to create, share, automate, and manage business processes with partners, suppliers, customers, and eMarketplaces over the Internet. Attunity solutions enable companies to simplify supply chain interaction, improve customer relationships, and expand the reach of their business.

Attunity delivers production-proven software and services to more than 1,000 companies and has strategic alliances with Oracle, Compaq, and other world-class partners. Attunity products are available through direct sales and support offices in the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, France, the People's Republic of China, and Australia, as well as a full-service distributor, Mitsui, in Japan.

Attunity is a publicly traded company (NASDAQ:ATTU). For more information, visit Attunity at www.attunity.com.

NOTE TO REPORTERS: Industry analyst and customer references are available.

Attunity, the Attunity logo, Attunity B2B, Attunity B2BEngine, Attunity B2BDesigner, Attunity Connect, and Attunity BluePrint are registered trademarks, Web Services process integration is a trademark, and "This Way to B2B" is a service mark of Attunity Ltd. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.

(Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this news release include forward-looking statements that may involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may vary significantly based upon a number of factors, including but not limited to risks and product technology development, market acceptance of the products and continuing product demand, the impact of competitive products and pricing, changing economic conditions, both here and abroad, release and sales of new products by strategic resellers and customers, and other risk factors detailed in the company's most recent annual report and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.)