Sonic Software 2004 Top Ten; 2004: Year of the Enterprise Service Bus - ESB -.

BEDFORD, Mass. -- Sonic Software, the inventor and leading provider of the enterprise service bus (ESB), today announced its Top Ten for 2004.

2004 was a remarkable year for Sonic Software and the enterprise middleware market in general. 2004 saw service-oriented architecture (SOA) become the watchword of the industry, and the enterprise service bus (ESB) has been identified by end-users, vendors and analysts as the key enabling infrastructure for enterprise SOA deployments. With the fifth Sonic ESB(R) product release and over 150 ESB customers, Sonic Software continued to dominate the ESB market in 2004, and define the future of ESB and SOA technology. Sonic and its customers also continued to garner industry acclaim for IT leadership and innovation.

The Sonic Top Ten for 2004

1. Sonic CTO Gordon Van Huizen was named one of the top 25 most influential CTOs in the industry by InfoWorld (http://www.infoworld.com/867).

2. Sonic Chief Technology Evangelist Dave Chappell authored the first book on the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) (http://www.sonicsoftware.com/esb_book).

3. Sonic was the first to deliver Continuous Availability Architecture (CAA) for enterprise messaging and service-oriented architecture (SOA), delivering "out-of-the-box" messaging fault tolerance (http://www.sonicsoftware.com/news_events/press/pressitem/ pressrelease_241396/index.ssp).(3)

4. Sonic released Sonic Business Integration Suite(TM) 5.5, built on the market-leading ESB, providing comprehensive infrastructure for event-driven SOAs, and setting the bar for ESB infrastructure (http://www.sonicsoftware.com/news_events/press/pressitem/pressrelease _284663/index.ssp).(3)

5. Sonic continued industry leadership of the ESB market with over 150 customers on the Bus.

6. Sonic ESB customer ABNA won the 2004 "ADT Innovator Award" for use of Sonic ESB, saving 5-10 percent of its $100 million logistics costs annually (http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=9142).

7. Sonic won numerous high-profile contracts, including BAA Plc, the largest single airport operator in the world, which selected Sonic ESB as the SOA infrastructure for the new Terminal Five project at Heathrow (http://www.sonicsoftware.com/news_events/press/pressitem/pressrelease _374849/index.ssp).(3)

8. Sonic ESB customers Proflowers and First Command were named among InfoWorld's "100 Most Innovative Corporate IT Solutions for 2004" for their enterprise SOA deployments based on Sonic technology (http://infoworld.com/2187).

9. In the sincerest form of flattery, IBM and BEA announced enterprise service bus (ESB) product plans--pledging to deliver first-generation products sometime in 2005.

10. Industry analysts continued to recognize the impact of the ESB. Forrester stated, "An ESB helps enterprises obtain the value of SOA by increasing connectivity, adding flexibility that speeds change, and providing greater control over use of the important resources it binds"(1); Gartner claimed "more than half of all large enterprises will have an enterprise service bus running by year-end 2006."(2)

About Sonic Software Corporation

Sonic Software is the inventor and leading provider of the enterprise service bus (ESB). Sonic enterprise integration and messaging products deliver flexibility, scalability, and continuous availability through patent-pending innovations. Sonic Software enables over 700 customers to integrate their organizations from the department to the extended enterprise with a standards-based, service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Sonic Software is an independent operating company of Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), a US$300+ million global software industry leader. Headquartered in Bedford, Mass., Sonic Software can be reached on the Web at http://www.sonicsoftware.com, or by phone at [phone] or 1-866-GET-SONIC.

Sonic ESB, Sonic Business Integration Suite and Sonic Software (and design) are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sonic Software Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Any other trademarks or service marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

(1)"What Is An Enterprise Service Bus?" Forrester Research. Mike Gilpin. August 13, 2004.

(2)"Predicts 2005: Application Integration, ESBs and B2B Evolve" Gartner, Inc. R. Schulte, J. Thompson, P. Malinverno, B. Lheureux, F. Kenney. Research note G00123854; November 1, 2004.

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