Composite Software Announces First EII Product to Provide Views into Critical Corporate Data Across System, Application and Geographic Boundaries.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 13, 2003

Composite Software today announced the introduction of the Composite Information Server, the first Enterprise Information Integration (EII) product to allow corporate users unfettered access to the information they need, regardless of the complexities caused by a variety of formats, locations and systems. The product creates an information infrastructure layer that, for the first time, allows corporate IT to deliver custom views of information from disparate sources for use by executives, employees, customers and partners. By presenting all enterprise data as if it exists in one location and in any familiar format, the Composite Information Server allows enterprises to maximize their return on information.

As corporate data has proliferated, access has become more difficult and complex. Valuable information is frequently located in separate silos across the organization and increasingly, with the popularity of Web Services, in entirely different organizations. Real-time access to a comprehensive set of data that is in an easily understandable and usable form has not been possible. With the Composite Information Server, greater value can be extracted from previously siloed data as it is now combined with other corporate information and is made accessible to other groups and individuals.

"Information is among the most important assets of any enterprise, but most businesses don't make the best use of this critical resource," said Jim Green, CEO of Composite Software and a pioneer of EAI. "All data, whether it resides within SAP, Siebel, Web Services or Excel applications, belongs to the enterprise and will need to be accessed across the network. At Composite, we give IT departments what was once impossible -- the ability to meet user demands for data while retaining control over data privacy and security."

Composite Views(TM) -- The Only Way To See All Corporate Data

Composite Views are the core building blocks of the Composite Information Server and provide an abstraction layer over multiple disparate data sources so that all the data appears like it exists in a single location to users whether it resides in a data warehouse, relational database, ERP application or web service. It lets users and applications leverage distributed data from multiple, heterogeneous sources in real-time or near real-time. A View serves to separate logical information from physical restrictions; and then presents it in the way the user wants to see it, not the way it exists. Similarly, a Composite View can be composed from multiple data sources, and hides the complexity of underlying sources. It keeps source data in its original location and does not create a new database layer that is immediately obsolete. And because users need to both access the data and act on it, Composite's products allow for the updating of underlying data sources. Composite Views are also unique in that they permit queries across relational as well as non-relational data such as XML or flat file data. And Composite allows IT to deliver Composite Views to any client software that supports SOAP/WSDL or JDBC/ODBC, including portals, spreadsheets, and business intelligence tools.

"Our desire to maintain a high level of customer service while aggressively expanding our business drove us to the Composite Information Server," said Wesley Bertch, Director of Software Operations for Life Time Fitness. "The Life Time Healthy Way of Life brand consists of health clubs, spas, health products, cafes and e-commerce services. Information is located across a large number of systems and locations, yet our 7,000 employees need the ability to access data where and when they need it. As we've grown in size and number of offerings, our need to use data in new ways has also evolved. For example, we need to be able to track customer behavior and revenues across a number of businesses and transactions. The Information Server allows us to do this. It is a mature, stable product with a support organization and management team to match. No other company today has an platform that achieves the Holy Grail of data integration like Composite."

The Composite View Services Architecture -- VSA 

The Composite Information Server, based on the proprietary View Services Architecture, consists of an intelligent query-processing engine, which sets new standards for query performance. The CIS includes patent-pending, state-of-the-art data-streaming and sophisticated query-optimization intelligence that looks at the structure of each query, then creates a query plan to optimize processing and speed performance. As a result the Composite Information Server often performs several times faster than any other EII product.

The Composite View Services Architecture also consists of a metadata repository that stores and manages the links between Composite Views and underlying source systems. The repository handles explicit and derived metadata, such as metadata for web services.

The server is the only product that lets it cache data from the source systems and create source-load policies for accessing operational data stores (ODS). And the Composite Information Server offers the most extensive security features of any EII product including distributed, multi-level security that honors existing entitlements and allows new security rules to be set.

"We have seen a remarkable up tick in IT-buyer EII interest in 2003, and several enterprises have indicated plans to fund EII initially or at a higher level in 2004," said Wayne Kernochan, Managing Vice President, Strategic Information Management, Aberdeen Group. "These companies have already invested in EAI, ETL and Data Warehousing technologies, and realize that EII solves a different problem that others do not. Composite Software has a unique solution that takes a leadership role in providing truly scalable EII through the data services grid -- a key long-term EII-user need. Their emphasis on ease of use, performance and security is highly differentiating. They also have a management team with the credentials and experience to pull it off."

Pricing and Availability

The Composite Information Server is now available directly from Composite Software. Pricing typically starts under $100,000 for an initial project.

About Composite Software

Composite Software is a provider of next stage EII solutions that allow businesses with increasingly diverse data sources to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time. The company provides Composite Views(TM) of critical business information that exists in multiple systems. Enterprises can now pull together re-useable views of customers, orders or risk from databases, Web services, enterprise applications, flat files and directories. These views can then be consumed through dashboards, Excel, portals or reporting tools. Started in 2002 and headquartered in San Mateo, Calif., Composite Software is funded by Palomar Ventures, Apax Partners, Clearstone Venture Partners and Dot Edu Ventures. For more information, please visit the company's web site at www.compositesw.com.