Enterprise Application Integration Group to Develop Standards Under the Auspices of The OMG; Special Interest Group Established and Workshop Planned.

MCLEAN, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 2, 1999--

Concept Five Technologies, Inc.(TM), and the Object Management Group(TM) (OMG(TM)) announce the establishment of the Enterprise Application Integration Special Interest Group (EAI SIG) and plans to sponsor an EAI Technical Workshop in February 2000. The EAI SIG will function under the OMG Domain Technology Committee (DTC).

EAI

EAI is the term applied to the use of middleware that allows integration of legacy, packaged, and new applications into business solutions. Some analysts have reported that their clients spend between 30 and 60% of their time building custom integration solutions. The emerging EAI market primarily represents pre-packaged integration solutions.

"Although EAI is the hottest industry buzzword to come along this year, the need for enterprise application integration is nothing new. Common business problems driving the EAI market include mergers and acquisitions, supply chain integration, accessibility to legacy data, and the emergence of e-commerce and globalization," explains Richard Soley, chairman and CEO of the Object Management Group. "All of these factors are driving demand for an integrated enterprise. By implementing these EAI-oriented initiatives, the OMG is concentrating on end-user needs and helping define integration specifications based on existing standardized middleware frameworks, including the OMG's CORBA technology. "

EAI SIG

On August 27, at the OMG's Technical Meeting Week, the OMG Domain Technology Committee voted to establish the EAI SIG. The EAI SIG will function under the OMG DTC and will provide a forum for convergence in the area of the EAI standards based on the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA).

"Many of the necessary technologies exist for creating EAI solutions," states William Ruh, CTO, Concept Five Technologies, and a major motivator of the group's formation. "However, a cohesive picture of EAI standardization does not currently exist. This creates an opportunity for an EAI SIG to identify standards needed and to drive their implementation. We're looking forward to facilitating this process."

Participation in EAI SIG meetings is open to all interested parties and OMG member organizations. If you are a not currently a member of the OMG, but would like to attend one of the EAI SIG's upcoming meetings, contact the OMG's Business Development Department at [phone].

OMG's EAI Technical Workshop

The OMG's first technical workshop on EAI will be held in February 2000. Exact dates and location will be forthcoming. This summit of technical experts in the various fields of EAI will explore how de facto and de jure standards such as object brokering, messaging and modeling can be brought to bear on the problem of building enterprise-wide, scalable application systems for today's heterogeneous enterprise. Since enterprises are not able to choose a single technology that suits all their business needs, they must use several (or even all) available technologies in concert. This workshop will focus on how to achieve inter-operation among the models to avoid the next generation of stovepipe systems. For information about the EAI Technical Workshop see http://www.omg.org.

About Concept Five Technologies

Concept Five Technologies offers e-business solutions and technologies that help companies jump-start their new business services while leveraging and securing their enterprise-wide resources. Their solutions include industry specific business strategies, advanced Web development, security, enterprise application integration (EAI) services and frameworks, for financial services, telecommunications and pharmaceutical companies. Since their founding in 1996, Concept Five has been among the leadership at the OMG. William A. Ruh, Executive Vice President and CTO, will chair the SIG. He is the author of Inside CORBA: Distributed Object Standards And Applications and will be releasing two new books in the near future, IIOP Complete: Middleware Interoperability and Standards, and Enterprise Application Integration at Work: How to Successfully Plan for EAI.

About The OMG

With the support of its membership of software vendors, software developers and end users, the OMG's CORBA is "The Middleware That's Everywhere(TM)." Since 1989, the OMG has been "Setting The Standards For Distributed Computing(TM)" through its mission to promote the theory and practice of object technology for the development of distributed computing systems. The goal is to provide a common architectural framework for object oriented applications based on widely available interface specifications. The OMG is headquartered in Framingham, MA, USA and has international marketing offices around the world, along with US-based industry-specific representatives. More information on the OMG and CORBA is available at www.omg.org and www.corba.org.

Note to editors: CORBA(R), The Information Brokerage(R), CORBA Academy(R), and the Object Management Group logo(R) are registered trademarks of the Object Management Group. OMG(TM), Object Management Group(TM), the CORBA Logo(TM), ORB(TM), Object Request Broker(TM), the CORBA Academy logo(TM) IIOP(TM), XMI(TM), MOF(TM), OMG Interface Definition Language(TM), IDL(TM), CORBAservices(TM), CORBAfacilities(TM), CORBAmed(TM), CORBAnet(TM), UML(TM), the UML Cube Logo(TM), and Unified Modeling Language(TM) are trademarks of the Object Management Group.

Note: This release is available for download at http://www.omg.org/news/pr99.html