Bowstreet Ships Second Version of Its Industry-leading XML Infrastructure for "Business Webs".

Business/Technology Editors

PORTSMOUTH, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 22, 2000

Blue-chip Enterprise and High-traffic Dot-coms are Deploying Bowstreet to Rapidly Build Scalable "Business Webs" From Web Services 

Bowstreet today announced the immediate, commercial availability of its industry-leading Extensible Markup Language (XML) platform, the Bowstreet(TM) Business Web Factory 2. The Business Web Factory 2 is the industry's first vendor-neutral XML platform that enables on-the-fly assembly and mass-customization of any and all XML-based web services, including those compatible with software from Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Sun (Nasdaq: SUNW), IBM (NYSE: IBM), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HWP) and others to build highly dynamic business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces called "business webs."

The second version of this software reflects over a year's experience working with early adopters, and is highly scalable and ready for production use. It has been adopted and is in implementation by international insurance and financial services giants AIG (NYSE: AIG) and MetLife (NYSE: MET), General Electric (NYSE: GE), CrossMark, MoneyStar, Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL) and S3 (Nasdaq: SIII), as well as Net Economy customers eframes.com, GetConnected.com, Houston Street Exchange and iProperty.com.

Bowstreet (www.bowstreet.com) pioneered the web services vision - the ability to capture and wrap a company's core business competencies in XML to share over the Internet - more than two years ago. Fortune 1000 and mid-sized companies, "pure-play" web services providers and traditional software developers are rapidly creating web services, which will revolutionize the economy and enable "plug-and-play" e-business because companies can share business processes and work together fluidly over the Internet without time-consuming computer programming.

Commercial availability of the Business Web Factory 2 coincides with Microsoft's announcement - Microsoft.NET. Andy Roberts, Bowstreet chief technology officer, explains how the Business Web Factory 2 complements Microsoft and leverages platform-neutrality to help Microsoft developers create web services that use the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). SOAP is the Microsoft-developed XML vocabulary that allows COM objects to communicate over the Internet.

"Bowstreet's engineers have demonstrated a SOAP builder - our term for a parametric software agent - that automates the process of analyzing the service definitions and constructing the appropriate service calls utilized at runtime," Roberts explains. "This builder empowers developers to quickly use SOAP-based web services without having to learn every nuance of this new technology. This in turn will allow line-of-business managers to customize and automatically assemble SOAP-compliant business webs."

Bowstreet today also announced the Business Web Exchange, online June 26, that will work in tandem with the Business Web Factory to usher in the third generation of e-business - interconnected business webs built upon thousands of web services. Bowstreet's Business Web Factory and Business Web Exchange let non-technical businesspeople create and customize an unlimited number and variety of online business relationships simply by pointing and clicking.

"Business webs, e-business networks, automated supply chains or virtual Internet companies: whatever you care to call them, they are definitely the basis for the `new' New Economy," said Kate Fessenden, research director, enterprise XML, for the Aberdeen Group in Boston. "Bowstreet is way ahead of the curve, and these offerings are among the most significant manifestations of the trend to date."

"The Bowstreet Business Web Factory and the Business Web Exchange are laying the foundation for transforming our customers' e-commerce transactions in ways that other technology vendors are just beginning to talk about," said Bowstreet President and CEO Bob Crowley. "Bowstreet has worked hard to get where the others want to be."

Business Web Factory 2 pricing and availability

Available today through Bowstreet's direct sales force and selected system integrators, the Bowstreet Business Web Factory 2 supports unlimited concurrent users and runs on Windows, Linux and Solaris platforms. Average deployments start at $250,000. Bowstreet today also began offering a free version of the Business Web Factory to encourage companies to gain experience with creating and publishing web services. The free version is downloadable via the Business Web Exchange to qualified business and software professionals.

In addition to integrating support for SOAP, the Business Web Factory also supports many XML schema definition languages, such as Microsoft's XML-Data Reduced (XDR), the preferred syntax for Microsoft's BizTalk framework, and the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C's) XML schema definition language. The Business Web Factory supports emerging XML schema definition languages and all schemas written in those definition languages, including the Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) 1.0 specification, RosettaNet and future Wireless Markup Language (WML) standards.

Business Web Exchange

The first trading hub for web services, the Business Web Exchange will provide an open, "one-stop-resource" community where web services publishers can learn about web services, freely share knowledge, foster business relationships, and create and publish web services.

The Business Web Exchange will be rolled out in waves. The first wave will enable pre-qualified business and development community members to create and publish web services to the Exchange. More than 70 partners have committed to publishing web services to the Exchange, with additional partners signing on daily. The Business Web Exchange will feature a multitude of web services across vertical industries. Online tutorials and discussion forums will foster a collaborative learning experience among Bowstreet and its publishing partners, with the Exchange providing a rallying point for the creation, publication and consumption of web services.

Subsequent waves will encompass a larger-scale market launch targeted to business consumers of web services.

About Bowstreet

Bowstreet provides the XML infrastructure designed to transform the World Wide Web from a collection of static web sites into a fluid web of interconnected businesses called "business webs." These dynamic and highly customized B2B marketplaces enable companies to sell new products and services, create new channels of distribution and develop new business models at a fraction of the time and cost of today's approaches. Bowstreet's patent-pending product, the Bowstreet Business Web Factory, and a robust Internet community, the Bowstreet Business Web Exchange, are designed to enable companies to form instant B2B connections, create richer offerings for existing customers and enable line-of-business managers to take complete control of e-business without technical help. For more information, visit www.bowstreet.com or call 603-559-1900.

Bowstreet is a trademark of Bowstreet.com Inc. All other company names and products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.