IONA AND TOSHIBA FORGE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP.

IONA, has announced a strategic partnership with Toshiba e-Solutions Company, a business of Toshiba Corporation, to cooperate in delivering e-business and systems integration solutions to current and future clients throughout the Japanese market.

By joining IONA Japan's Certified Strategic Partnership Program, Toshiba will be able to strengthen its e-business systems integration offerings with IONA Orbix E2A. Under the terms of this agreement, Toshiba may utilize IONA's Orbix E2A Web Services Integration solutions in proposing customer solutions and building next-generation e-business integration platforms. IONA's experience with CORBA-based service-oriented architectures and success delivering standards-based integration solutions has positioned the company as an early leader in the market for Web Services Integration solutions.

"IONA's product set and integration technology have an extensive track-record in the telecommunications and manufacturing industries," said Yasuo Miyabe, General Manager, Toshiba e-Solutions Strategic Planning Division. "At Toshiba, we are thoroughly convinced of the importance of CORBA, and in systems-related work, we think that it is a must-have technology. We have adopted CORBA as a core technology element within Toshiba's own systems development project work. We are aggressively acting in the capacity of a CORBA center of competence which functions as a key resource for this technology's application and advancement, as well as for education around CORBA initiatives."

"We believe that this alliance will enable us to provide CORBA and other standards-based system solutions that result in even higher levels of satisfaction from our customers. We anticipate seeing an expansion of business opportunities that allow us to meet our customers' needs by extending our cooperation with IONA to the field of Web Services Integration," Miyabe concluded.

"Toshiba has rated IONA's technical capabilities very highly, leading to the conclusion of this strategic partnership agreement. Given Toshiba's known strengths in the Japanese market in the areas of systems development and solutions crafting, we believe that this arrangement expands the possibilities for implementations of IONA's technology offerings ranging from embedded systems to business-to-business integration," said Shinya Saito, Managing Director of IONA Technologies Japan Ltd.

"In the area of Web Services Integration, IONA will be employing its rigorously standards-based technology in support of its close cooperation with Toshiba," continued Saito. "This cooperation is designed to allow both our companies to offer high-quality solutions to an increasingly broader range of customers in the Japanese marketplace."

The Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform - which combines business-to-business, enterprise integration, and application development functionality - is built on Web services standards and a services-oriented architecture to cut the cost of application integration both inside and outside the firewall. The Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform provides all the tools and the management services required for reliable, scalable, and secure dynamic data exchange, business process automation, and composite applications. The Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform is available in three editions: XMLBus, Partner and Collaborate.

The Orbix E2A Application Server Platform is the most deployed, heterogeneous application server in the industry. Orbix E2A Application Server Platform combines the scalability of CORBA and the productivity of J2EE, with Web services standards. The Orbix E2A Application Server Platform provides the management services required for reliable, scalable, and secure applications. The Orbix E2A Application Server Platform is available in three editions: J2EE Technology, Standard and Enterprise. [sections]