Consolidated Commerce Selects Software AG's Tamino XML Platform Technology for Integration With Their Supply Chain Fulfillment Solution.

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

CHICAGO & RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 20, 2001

Tamino Will Provide Data Store Services for the Consolidated

Commerce Collaborative Fulfillment, Consolidated Fulfillment and

Purchasing(TM) application

Consolidated Commerce, Inc. a supplier of Supply Chain Operations software solutions, and Software AG, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Software AG, Europe's largest system software provider, announced that the Tamino(TM) XML Platform will be integrated with the Collaborative Fulfillment, Consolidated Fulfillment and Purchasing(TM) application to provide persistent data store services.

The original equipment manufacturer agreement grants Consolidated Commerce the rights to re-distribute Tamino as a component of their Supply Chain Operations solution.

"We are delighted that Consolidated Commerce has chosen the Tamino XML Platform to integrate with their innovative supply chain solution," said Lori Williams-Peters, vice president of New Business and Indirect Sales, Software AG, Inc.

"They chose Tamino for its speed and efficiency after comparing it with other RDBMS solutions. In picking Tamino, Consolidated Commerce joins with IBM, BEA and HP, which all recently announced that they have chosen Tamino as part of the XML solution for their e-business, application servers."

According to Consolidated Commerce, the decision to use Tamino was based on the results of research and prototyping that covered the most persistent data store solutions currently available in the marketplace.

Hybrid solutions that involved an RDBMS solution with XML to SQL translation middleware were eliminated because of their slow performance relative to native XML solutions and the added complexity of having to maintain multiple schemas in order to map XML structures to their equivalent relational database structures in SQL.

The Tamino platform not only provides all the basic services commonly associated with RDBMS solutions such as transaction processing, transaction logging, and basic database utilities, but it also comes with valuable extensibility features.

The extensibility features of the Tamino platform can be used to define objects that are persisted across multiple data stores such as ERP applications or relational databases.

Consolidated Commerce built its application with the premise that the supply chain is a "hub" structure, to automate processes that occur across multiple companies. To enable collaborative fulfillment, a systems application must use the web as the underlying network and treat separate companies as "users" of the single application.

Most traditional systems use the web merely as a conduit to move data back and forth, always acting on that data from the perspective of a single company. The Consolidated Commerce system can actually act on data without replicating it onto its own system. This enables Consolidated's customers to access real-time data, which improves decision-making and overall operational performance.

Decisions can now be made dynamically about where and how to fulfill orders among trading partners, based on real-time information from those partners. It enables companies whose order fulfillment operations often involve other companies, and where the "fulfillment path" an order takes may differ based on various business conditions.

"Tamino was head and shoulders above their competitors as it not only supports all of the functions required to maintain the ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Independence, and Durability) properties of our application data but also has all the performance and ease of use advantages provided by a native XML data server. The ability to define business objects that span data sources maintained in ERP or data warehouse systems has allowed us to draw a clear boundary in our system architecture between data access operations and business object transaction processing," said David J. Dowat, Manager of Application Development at Consolidated Commerce.

"This allows us to shield our applications programmers and end users from the complexities of creating and manipulating objects defined over heterogeneous data stores."

"The architecture of Tamino combines seamlessly with our net-resident technical architecture which is based on the HTTP Protocol and the direct manipulation of XML documents using XSLT and Java in a networked environment," said Jim Gehrett, Manager of Technical Architecture at Consolidated Commerce.

"Tamino is inherently faster than equivalent hybrid solutions since it does not require any translation from our XML object definitions to a relational data structure. There simply is no better platform to support an n-tier, net resident, native XML application."

"Software AG truly understands the needs of web centric applications. We are excited to have Software AG's decades of experience and battle tested technology as a foundational element of our own application," said Samir Gulve, VP of Technology at Consolidated Commerce.

About Software AG, Inc.

Based in Reston, VA, Software AG, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Software AG, Europe's largest system software provider and a major global player offering cutting edge technology for data management and electronic business.

Since 1998 the company has focused its development activities on XML products for the Internet. With some 3,500 employees and representatives in over 70 countries, Software AG expects revenues to exceed 600 million euros in 2001.

Its distribution and technology partners include market leaders such as IBM, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard as well as innovative IT solutions providers like Extensibility, Softquad and Sequoia. Software AG's products control the central IT processes of thousands of renowned companies worldwide.

Some examples of these are Lufthansa, British Sky Broadcasting, ZDF, Dresdner Bank AG, Swiss Post, DaimlerChrysler, Deutsche Bahn AG (German Rail), BP and VIAG Interkom. Software AG, headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (MDAX, Security identification number 724264 / SOWGn.F). For additional information go to: www.softwareagusa.com.

About Consolidated Commerce

Consolidated Commerce, Inc. provides a Net-resident collaborative fulfillment software solution that helps manufacturers and distributors create and fulfill the perfect order. The company's collaborative fulfillment solution, Consolidated Fulfillment and Purchasing(TM), automates the order-to-cash business processes.

The modular solution complements traditional systems and enables companies to quickly and cost-efficiently interact across enterprises, in real-time to receive and fulfill customer orders, and to manage procurement of direct materials with suppliers. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Consolidated Commerce is available on the World Wide Web at: www.consolidatedcommerce.com/.