Boeing and IONA Extend Relationship for e-business Development.

Business/Technology Editors

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 21, 2000

Leading Aerospace Company Expands EAI Relationship with Enterprise

Portal Vendor to Include iPortal Suite Family of Products

IONA(R), the Enterprise Portal Company(tm), (NASDAQ: IONA), today announced a significant development in its relationship with Boeing, the world leader in aerospace, (NYSE: BA), to include IONA's iPortal Suite(tm). Strengthening the companies' long-standing relationship, Boeing will leverage the iPortal Suite for the design, development and deployment of e-business solutions, while continuing to utilize IONA's products for the integration of mission-critical applications.

As the industry's first comprehensive suite of products designed to address the problems in developing, deploying and managing enterprise portals, IONA's iPortal Suite provides Boeing with a scalable platform for the integration of legacy systems, proprietary software applications and new business logic. Utilizing the standards-based infrastructure of the iPortal Suite, Boeing can continue to leverage technology investments from other vendors and deliver an e-business solution that enhances its existing business practices and operations.

"The scope of our organization is enormous and requires the integration of numerous computing platforms, software applications and mainframe systems," said Kyle Quinn, Director of E-business at Boeing. "In order for us to fully leverage our existing IT infrastructure and intellectual property in our e-business operations, we needed a technology agnostic platform that allows for a high level of functionality and interoperability."

IONA's relationship with Boeing began in 1995 when the aerospace company selected Orbix(R), the e-business infrastructure of IONA's iPortal Suite, as the integration platform for Boeing's Define Control Airplane Configuration/Manufacturing Resource Management (DCAC/MRM) program. Since that time DCAC/MRM has installed multiple upgrades of Orbix, the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group (BCAG) has declared Orbix as its standard integration platform and Orbix has been deployed for use in Boeing's Standards Parts Retrieval System (USPARTS), and Boeing On-line Delivery (BOLD)/Redars projects.

"We are extremely pleased to be extending our relationship with IONA," said Kristi Savacool, vice president of BCAG information systems. "For the past five years, IONA has been an integral part of our EAI projects, consistently demonstrating the value and functionality of its technology. I'm confident that IONA's products will be of similar value to us as we develop and deploy our e-business strategy."

"Our relationship with Boeing is one of IONA's most strategic, and this substantial multi-year agreement takes the relationship to the next level," said Barry Morris, CEO at IONA. "We have been working with Boeing since 1995, and I look forward to supporting them in the development of a leading-edge e-business strategy."

About the iPortal Suite

IONA's iPortal Suite helps companies build B2B enterprise portals, which are unified points of access that connect the web to the corporate business by integrating all of an organization's applications and back-end systems. The iPortal Suite's five components are:

--iPortal Server, which provides Internet integration in the form of a portal access and control platform

--iPortal Integration Server, which is a standards-based environment for leveraging and integrating large-scale enterprise applications

--iPortal OS/390 Server, which incorporates mainframe applications into e-business solutions, delivering proven business systems to enterprise portals

--iPortal Application Server, which is an EJB/J2EE-based server for component-based business logic

--Orbix 2000, which is a standards-based, common e-business infrastructure that is the foundation of the iPortal Suite

About IONA

IONA, the Enterprise Portal Company, is a leading provider of e-business infrastructure that helps organizations build and deploy enterprise portals, Internet commerce sites, and other large-scale distributed applications. IONA supports a full diversity of languages, including Java and C++, and distributed computing technologies, including SOAP, XML, EJB, J2EE, CORBA, Microsoft's Windows DNA 2000 and IBM OS/390, CICS and IMS. Founded in 1991, IONA Technologies is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland with US headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts. The company had revenues of $105 million in 1999 and employs more than 700 people in 25 offices worldwide. For more information, please see www.iona.com

IONA and Orbix are registered trademarks, and the Enterprise Portal Company and iPortal Suite are trademarks of IONA Technologies. The names of companies and products mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.