Progress Software Announces Progress ESP Platform; Empowers Business Users to Monitor, Analyze, and Act on Real-Time Event Streams by Rapidly Composing, Deploying and Evolving Complex Event Processing Scenarios.

BEDFORD, Mass. -- The Progress Real Time Division, a leader in real-time products for event stream processing, data management, data access and synchronization, and an operating unit of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), today announced the Progress(R) ESP(TM) Platform. As the industry's first fully integrated, general purpose Event Stream Processing (ESP) platform, Progress ESP delivers tools that allow business users to create applications that can monitor real-time event streams, detect and analyze event patterns, and take action in milliseconds.

Already in use at financial services organizations in the United States and Europe, the Progress ESP Platform extends event stream processing to a wide range of new markets. Now able to exploit the power and flexibility of the Progress event platform are applications such as RFID-enabled asset tracking and business activity monitoring (BAM) for real-time visibility of business processes, enterprise risk management, monitoring and control of telecommunications, industrial, and utility networks, and energy trading.

"The Progress ESP platform has proven itself to meet the extremely fast-paced demands of financial service organizations where algorithm-driven trading programs must be created in hours, not days, by IT and business users alike. And they must capture, analyze and act on tens of thousands of data points per second, responding within milliseconds," said Mark Palmer, vice president, event stream processing, Progress Real Time Division. "We now extend that same field-proven technology outside financial services to meet the growing demand for ESP applications in other markets."

"There are important financial and strategic benefits to implementing event-driven business processes," said Roy W. Schulte, Vice President Distinguished Analyst at Gartner. "The most powerful forms of event-driven applications require event stream processing. Companies will need event stream processing to implement certain types of systems for competitive advantage and regulatory compliance. Event stream processing will help companies achieve the visibility they need to compete in a complex, fast-shifting, event-driven world."

The Progress ESP platform features the Progress(R) ESP(TM) Event Modeler(TM), a unique graphical environment that enables business users to quickly compose, deploy and evolve highly sophisticated, real-time event processing scenarios without the need to resort to low level coding. Through a graphical state diagram, event processing scenarios can express event patterns that include time as an element, and then analyze that data and trigger action instantly.

Event Modeler includes a standard set of event process SmartBlocks, packages of reusable event processing logic that enable users to capture, reuse and extend business intelligence in event scenarios. Dashboards provide a Web-based user interface for the event processing scenarios that allow users to monitor operating scenarios and receive alerts whenever an action needs to be taken.

Once developed in the Event Modeler, event processing scenarios are injected into the Progress(R) ESP(TM) Event Manager(TM) for execution and management. Event Manager consists of one or more event correlation engines that monitor inbound event streams for patterns and match conditions defined by the Event Modeler. Event Manager employs a patented multi-dimensional filtering mechanism that quickly sifts through multiple event data streams, detects patterns, and identifies appropriate responses in milliseconds. Multiple correlator instances can be configured to distribute events for load balancing and fault tolerance.

Availability and Pricing

The Progress ESP Platform offers pre-packaged adapters that integrate with the most popular middleware (SonicMQ(R), JMS, Tibco Rendezvous) and databases (any ODBC-capable database). It can be deployed on Windows NT, XP and 2003, Sun Solaris, Red Hat and SUSE Linux. The Progress ESP platform is available as a subscription with pricing determined on a per-seat basis.

About Progress Real Time Division

The Progress Real Time Division provides event stream processing, data management, data access, and synchronization products to enable the real-time enterprise. Our products monitor and analyze real-time event stream data for applications such as algorithmic trading and RFID; accelerate the performance of existing databases through sophisticated caching; manage and process complex data in the industry's leading object database; and support occasionally connected or mobile users requiring real-time access to enterprise applications. Progress Real Time is an operating unit of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), a global software industry leader. Headquartered in Bedford, Mass., Progress Real Time can be reached at http://www.progress.com/realtime or 781-280-4000.

Progress, ESP, Event Modeler, and Event Manager are trademarks or registered trademarks of Progress Software Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. SonicMQ is a registered trademark of Sonic Software Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Any other trademarks or services marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.