OMG's FastStart Program for MDA Expands With 19 New Service Providers.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

NEEDHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 23, 2003

The Object Management Group(TM) (OMG(TM)) announces a major expansion of its Model Driven Architecture(R) (MDA(R)) FastStart Program.

The FastStart program's rapidly growing list of Qualified Service Providers (QSPs) has been joined by nineteen new companies: 88 Solutions, ADA Software, Advanced Concepts Center, ATC Enterprises, Inc., Cephas Consulting, Cogenture Limited, Compuware, Data Access Technology, Finantix, Herzum Software, Inherit, LLC, iO Software GmbH, M2VP, Metanology, NT/e, Object Computing Inc., Osellus, Pathfinder Solutions and X-Change Technologies. More information and commentary about the program from each participating company can be found at http://www.omg.org/faststart/qualified_service_providers.htm.

Each FastStart QSP has a service organization that has demonstrated extensive practical experience in MDA software development, and is pledged to follow a common MDA FastStart curriculum designed by the OMG. The FastStart curriculum is designed to help end-user organizations quickly integrate MDA into their mission-critical software development activities and clearly demonstrate the practical value of MDA on a real project in as little as 5 weeks. A full description of this unique program can be found at www.omg.org/fast-start.

According to Michael Guttman, OMG's FastStart Program Director, "The response to MDA FastStart has been phenomenal. Under the slogan 'The Fastest Way to MDA(R)', we have assembled a powerhouse of expertise that end-users can leverage to get their MDA programs up and running. Most importantly, the program is structured to deliver highly demonstrable business value in a very short time. MDA is taking off in the marketplace, and this is exactly what end-user organizations have been asking the OMG to provide in order to help them get started."

The MDA FastStart Program incorporates all the elements necessary to make MDA adoption successful in a corporate or institutional business and IT environment. This includes: Assessment - a thorough assessment of business and technical drivers; Overview - a week long analysis by a seasoned MDA architect used to determine in more detail the technology specifics of the organization's current architectural foundation; Transition - a week long activity resulting in a set of recommendations and a high level plan for introducing and incorporating MDA into the customer's organization; and MDA seminars and an MDA Practicum.

Contact Michael Guttman, Program Director for more information at [phone] or visit the MDA FastStart Program website at www.omg.org/fast-start.

About The OMG

With well-established standards covering software from design and development, through deployment and maintenance, and extending to evolution to future platforms, the Object Management Group (OMG) supports a full-lifecycle approach to enterprise integration which maximizes ROI, the key to successful IT. OMG's standards cover multiple operating systems, programming languages, middleware and networking infrastructures, and software development environments. OMG's Modeling standards, the basis for the MDA, include the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM). CORBA, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture, is OMG's standard open platform with hundreds of millions of deployments running today.

Headquartered in Needham, MA, USA, with a U.S. government representative in Washington, DC, and international marketing representatives in Japan, the UK, and Germany, the Object Management Group is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry specifications consortium. OMG member companies write, adopt, and maintain the organization's standards following a mature, open process. All current OMG specifications may be downloaded without charge from the organization's website, www.omg.org; the site also provides additional information about OMG and its activities. For information on joining the OMG, or questions not addressed on the website, please contact OMG headquarters by email at [e-mail], by phone at [phone], or by fax at [phone].

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