Progress Announces OpenEdge Roadmap for New Service Oriented Architecture.

Business/Technology Editors

Exchange 2002 Users Conference

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 3, 2002

Product Strategy to Support the Standards-Based Integration of Web

Services and Development of New Service Oriented Applications

At the Exchange 2002 Users Conference, the Progress Company, a business unit of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS) and a leading supplier of technology for building business applications, unveiled the Progress product roadmap to enable business application developers to support a new service oriented architecture (SOA) using the OpenEdge(TM) platform.

Through a two-pronged approach, the company is building: 1) a rich set of integration technology for existing OpenEdge business applications, and 2) evolving its new repository-based application environment, Progress Dynamics(TM), to serve the needs of next-generation, SOA applications. Under this product strategy, businesses around the world will benefit from the ability to automate ever more business processes by integrating best-of-breed application modules for which the Progress Company's 2,000 application partners, rich in domain expertise, are renowned.

"Key business drivers, such as the need to tighten supply chains and raise business process efficiency, combined with emerging integration standards, are resulting in new demands on business applications, as well as offering new opportunities for specialized developers," said David Ireland, president of the Progress Company. "We believe that in the future landscape of modular, service-based applications, the OpenEdge platform will continue to provide developers with the most cost-effective and flexible platform for developing, deploying, managing, and integrating business applications."

"Aberdeen's research has consistently shown that Progress has done an exceptional job in providing cost-effective embedded infrastructure for key business-critical applications--a vital consideration in these cost-conscious times," said Wayne Kernochan, managing vice president, Platform Infrastructure, at Aberdeen Group. "The improved performance/scalability, open flexibility, and increased capabilities announced today should allow Progress to deliver even better cost of ownership in both existing and new Web-service-oriented applications. Moreover, by offering ISVs a service-oriented architecture that should provide a smooth path to Web service development, Progress is ensuring that the outstanding variety and depth of domain expertise of its development partners translates to a broad array of attractive solutions for enterprises as they target their Web services efforts towards immediate bang for the buck."

New Release Furthers Integration Capabilities of OpenEdge(TM) Applications

The Progress(R) OpenEdge Platform is extending its tool set for building open, highly integratable applications with the release of Progress 9.1D. The Progress V9.1 family of application deployment products provide the ability to interface business logic with any application client, any data source, and any other application. With the secure, Internet-enabled functionality of Progress' OpenClient technology, OpenEdge business logic can be encapsulated and exposed to a wider range of integration adapters.

An enhanced 9.1D adapter for SonicMQ(R) provides OpenEdge developers with access to SonicXQ(TM)'s industry-leading Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) technology for service-based processes and applications. Leveraging ESB technology, existing applications will be able to exchange XML and SOAP messages with other enterprise applications. This standards-based approach to application integration is more flexible, cost effective, and much more scalable in a distributed environment than using proprietary, hub and spoke oriented integration brokers. Applications and services can be "plugged-in" to the ESB to share information with other applications and services on the bus. Through its support for the ESB, OpenEdge can leverage pre-built, configurable services to perform integration functions such as content-based routing and XML transformation to ensure information can be used by any application on the bus, without additional coding.

Progress to Release Web Service Toolkit

Late in 2002, Progress will release a technology preview of their Web Services Developer Tool Kit through PSDN (Progress Software Developers Network(TM)). The tool kit will simplify the task of developing applications that consume Web services messages through the Progress AppServer(TM) by leveraging its OpenClient technology. This approach provides Progress developers a familiar tool set and design methodology for exposing their applications as Web services.

"Progress welcomes the opportunities Web services bring to our partners' distributed applications," said Peter Sliwkowski, vice president of Progress products. "The OpenEdge strategy is to support and simplify Web services so that they are just another natural part of building integrated, componentized business solutions."

"It is our belief that a key concept in any successful Web services implementation will be co-existence," said Ross Elliot, vice president of operations at NxTrend, a Progress independent software vendor (ISV) (www.nxtrend.com ). "As long as vendors adhere to these standards, my applications will be able to interoperate with any other applications regardless of the tools used to build them. Best-of-breed modules can then be easily added to enhance enterprise applications, or used to build new hybrid applications."

Progress Dynamics(TM) to Provide Tools to Build and Deploy Service Oriented Applications

Progress Dynamics, first released in December of 2001, brings a repository-based application framework to OpenEdge that makes it easier to design, develop, and deploy distributed, process-based applications. With the introduction of Progress Dynamics V2 later this year, the framework facilitates interface independence with run-time support for both traditional GUI and Web browser client interfaces from a common repository of process and interface information.

Progress Dynamics will introduce repository support for a full service oriented architecture designed to assist the developer in building business processes that can be quickly assembled into specific applications for the end user. Future releases will extend Progress Dynamics for SOA and will include an integration infrastructure designed to address the challenges in deploying and managing distributed service-oriented architectures.

About Sonic Software Corporation

Sonic Software enables reliable interoperability of software applications within and across enterprises based on Web services and Internet messaging standards. Sonic products provide advanced security capabilities, unmatched performance and scalability, and guaranteed delivery of mission-critical information.

Sonic is the world's fastest growing Internet middleware company and counts leaders in financial services, energy, telecommunications and manufacturing among its over 500 customers.

Sonic is an independent operating company of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), a $250+ million software industry leader with customers in over 100 countries. Headquartered in Bedford, Mass., Sonic Software can be reached on the Web at sonicsoftware.com or at [phone] or1-866-GET-SONIC.

About the Progress Company

The Progress Company is a global supplier of software and services that simplify the development, deployment, integration, and management of business applications. The Progress(R) OpenEdge(TM) platform, with the industry's leading embedded database, delivers lowest cost-of-ownership applications that are rapidly implemented and easily integrated with other enterprise, extended enterprise and Internet applications.

With the expertise of more than 2,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) and application service providers (ASPs), the Progress Company and its application partners supply more than $5 billion annually in Progress technology, Progress(R)-based applications, and related services. Progress customers span 50,000 organizations in more than 120 countries including 70 percent of the Fortune 100. The Progress Company, an operating unit of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), is headquartered in Bedford, Mass., and can be reached at 1-781-280-4000 or on the Web at www.progress.com.

Progress, Progress Dynamics, Progress Software Developers Network, OpenEdge, and AppServer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Progress Software Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. SonicMQ and SonicXQ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sonic Software Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.