IONA Extends Web Services Leadership with Artix 2.0; Service-Oriented Solution Targets Enterprises Needing to Reduce Infrastructure Cost and Complexity.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

DUBLIN, Ireland & WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 15, 2004

IONA(R) (NASDAQ: IONA), a world leader in high performance integration solutions for mission-critical IT environments, today announced the immediate availability of Artix 2.0. The latest release of IONA's Web services integration product family offers enhancements that make it easier for enterprise developers to develop and deliver large-scale service-oriented architecture (SOA) projects that dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of IT computing environments.

"IONA has taken a big step forward with their Artix 2.0 release," said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst with ZapThink, LLC. "They have produced a compelling solution that meets the long-standing need to integrate disparate, heterogeneous systems in a way that is standards-based, loosely-coupled, and based on emerging Service-Oriented Architectures. In addition, their family of products includes the broadest set of technologies to meet the needs of companies as they look to integrate their existing IT assets - whether standalone, on application servers, message buses, or legacy mainframe systems."

Artix 2.0 extends IONA's leadership position in Web services with a significantly enhanced set of enterprise features, including

-- support for WS-Security, which lets applications interoperate

without changing their respective technologies for directory

services, security and authentication

-- integration with major systems management vendors, including

BMC Patrol and IBM Tivoli, which brings SOAs built with Artix

under the management umbrellas that enterprises already use

-- implementation of the internationalization standard i18N,

which broadens the reach of Artix by providing support for

international character sets

-- support for additional platforms and protocols, including AIX 

and JMS 

-- extensibility features that enable end-user customization of

encryption, compression, auditing, and other services

All of these enhancements serve to make Web services integration available to a broader set of organizations and developers. With Artix 2.0, more organizations can leverage Web services standards now to build secure service-oriented architectures that address critical enterprise integration requirements.

Enterprise developers can download the free Artix Developer Kit from IONA's Web site. This Developer Kit allows enterprise developers to build rich, Web services-based integration solutions. Along with the Developer Kit, developers receive SOA and Web services integration tutorials, courseware, and product documentation.

The Developer Kit is available for download at http://www.iona.com/artixdevkit.

"Artix is intended for organizations that are ready to commit to service-oriented architectures and want to begin deploying Web services in high performance mission-critical systems," said Scott Devens, vice president of products at IONA. "With the 2.0 release of Artix, we have expanded the range of integration problems that Artix can solve, while making service-oriented integration solutions available to a wider enterprise developer audience. Artix is the only choice for Java and C++ developers who need to built large-scale SOA projects, bridge multiple middleware technologies, or extend irreplaceable mainframe assets as Web services, and IONA customers are solving these and other problems with Artix now."

Availability and Supported Platforms

Artix 2.0 is available NOW for Windows NT/2000/XP, Red Hat Linux, Solaris, AIX and HP-UX. Artix Mainframe 2.0 is available for z/OS and OS/390.

About IONA

For more than a decade, IONA(R) Technologies (NASDAQ: IONA) has been a world leader in delivering high performance integration solutions for enterprise IT environments. IONA pioneered standards-based integration with its CORBA-based Orbix(R) product family. The Artix(TM) product family, IONA's new generation of integration solutions, extends IONA's commitment to service-oriented industry standards, including Web services.

With its partners, IONA is the only company that can deliver NOW on the promise of service-oriented integration, making it possible for customers to achieve system longevity and agility at a significantly lower cost.

IONA's customers include Global 2000 companies in telecommunications, financial services, aerospace, and manufacturing, including AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth, Deutsche Telekom, British Telecom, Hong Kong Telecom, NTT, Credit Suisse, Bank of Montreal, Merrill Lynch, Winterthur Insurance, Zurich Insurance and Boeing.

IONA is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with U.S. headquarters in Massachusetts and offices worldwide. For additional information about IONA, visit our Web site at http://www.iona.com.

IONA, IONA Technologies, the IONA logo, Orbix, High Performance Integration, Artix, Mobile Orchestrator and Making Software Work Together are trademarks or registered trademarks of IONA Technologies PLC and/or its subsidiaries. Microsoft .NET is software for connecting people, information, systems, and devices. J2EE is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. CORBA is a trademark or registered trademark of the Object Management Group, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks that may appear herein are the property of their respective owners.