CXO Systems and Cast Iron Systems Team To Reduce Cost and Time of Business Dashboard Deployment; Partnership Provides Streamlined Intelligence Routing and Dashboard Solution.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 12, 2004

CXO Systems, a leading provider of one-touch executive visibility systems, today announced its partnership with Cast Iron Systems, the pioneer of application integration appliances.

CXO and Cast Iron Systems entered into an alliance and joint market development initiative focused on cutting the cost of traditional EAI integration in half and speeding up the deployment of composite-based Business Intelligence Dashboards. The companies will activate these Appliance-Based Dashboards in as little as six weeks at a fraction of the cost of traditional EAI integration.

The partnership provides businesses the benefit of a completely integrated real-time, one-touch view of enterprise information with a simplified and low-cost routing solution. CXO Systems pulls and integrates information from operational and analytical systems, providing executives with immediate access to the information they need to make powerful business decisions without new large investments in data warehousing, business intelligence or EAI tools. Cast Iron Systems' Application Router improves the cost and ease of connecting business applications with different protocols and data formats.

"Cast Iron Systems' Application Router is a natural fit with the CXO Intelligence and Dashboard Systems solution. This partnership enables us to marry the power of integration with the power of intelligence," said Fred Meyer, CEO and president of Cast Iron Systems. "Together, we are able to further assist our customers with their business integration needs."

The CXO Systems and Cast Iron Systems' solution combines the ability for both business and IT users to get at the information they need in a better-faster-cheaper manner. Business dashboards help usher in a new form of business communication in which IT's value will have a direct and measurable role.

"We have seen the power of the Cast Iron Systems' Application Router deployed at our global clients," said Michael M. Carter, co-founder and chief marketing officer of CXO Systems. "Its ability to simplify the transactional integration process, married to our composite-based Intelligence Infrastructure and Business Dashboards, enable clients to integrate and access critical business information more seamlessly than ever before, at a fraction of the cost of traditional EAI deployments."

The Cast Iron Systems Application Router is the first integration solution to address the majority of integration problems where traditional integration solutions are overly complex and custom programming is insufficient. The product solves the most common integration problems by connecting, transforming, and routing data and events from source to target systems, with sophisticated features including guaranteed delivery of messages and failure notifications. This hardware appliance is the simplest and least expensive way to solve data integration, enabling customers to install and integrate within hours of delivery resulting in payback in as little as four months.

CXO System 3.1 pulls and integrates information from operational and analytical systems, providing executives with immediate access to the information they need to make powerful business decisions without new large investments in data warehousing, business intelligence or EAI tools. CXO System 3.1 includes a Universal Information Network for the enterprise created by Business Information Networks (BINs) - those specific data and information elements executives need to effectively run an organization - and a zero data warehousing footprint that is able to connect existing data warehouses or store and design a business process and information architecture that reduces latency, decreases costs and increases the velocity of information.

About Cast Iron Systems

Cast Iron Systems is the inventor of the Application Router(TM), and is working with a premier group of customers and investors to build a revolutionary solution to application integration. Cast Iron's unique products enable enterprises to drastically reduce their integration costs by offering a simple yet scalable device. Based in Mountain View, California, Cast Iron was founded in 2001 and consists of a world-class team committed to solving the costly and complex IT application integration challenges facing today's Fortune 500 organizations. For more information, visit Cast Iron's website at www.castironsys.com.

About CXO Systems

CXO Systems is the first Web-Services based business application provider for executives. The company is focused upon providing large and growing organizations with a one-touch view of business operations through its patent-pending Visibility System and CXO Dashboard offerings. Combining distributed intelligence and seamless integration the company offers a Zero Data Warehousing footprint, enabling organizations to leverage their existing investments made in Business Intelligence and Enterprise Application Integration, and gain new levels of Business Visibility for senior management. CXO Systems is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts with development centers in Sunnyvale, California, and Pune, India. For more information, please visit www.cxosystems.com.