Web Services Cited as Key IT Initiative Among Fortune 2000 Companies.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 11, 2003

According to a Recent Survey Commissioned by Actional Corporation,

IT Professionals See Strong Benefits in Deploying a More Flexible IT

Architecture

Actional Corporation, the Web services management market-share leader, today announced results from a recently commissioned survey* that found that 93 percent of IT professionals at Fortune 2000 companies cite deploying Web services as a key IT initiative. The survey also found that more than 60 percent of all respondents plan to deploy a service-oriented architecture (SOA), using Web services, in the near future, with more than half of them expecting to deploy immediately or within the next 12 months. The primary driver, concluded from the survey, is the desire within IT departments to achieve greater agility and flexibility in meeting business demands.

SOAs provide organizations with a cost-effective and flexible strategy for building and deploying an IT architecture that can seamlessly connect to services in near real-time both inside and outside the organization. SOAs enable businesses to rapidly respond to changing market demands and deliver increased flexibility in creating various internal and external business networks among distributed employees, partners and customers. Fueling the adoption of SOAs is the growing acceptance of Web services standards. With the underpinnings of Web services solidly in place, the survey findings suggest that IT departments have embraced the benefits of Web services and are using them to take their SOAs to the next level.

While the deployment of SOAs through Web services accelerates the ability for organizations to respond to change, the very nature of Web services environments are highly interdependent and complex. As a result, any small change to the service network, such as the addition of a new supply-chain partner or conversion to a new CRM application, can create a ripple effect of change across the entire service network -- leading to costly service network downtime and service failure. Deploying a comprehensive Web services management solution as part of an organization's SOA and Web services initiative can help companies dramatically reduce the negative impact of change inherent in Web services environments. This approach allows organizations to understand key network interdependencies and proactively identify and resolve service network problems -- ensuring network uptime and significantly increasing the benefits of their SOA and Web services deployments.

"A Web services management solution needs to provide organizations with total visibility and control across their entire service network," said James Phillips, chief strategist and senior vice president of Actional Corporation. "Actional is committed to delivering solutions that provide this level of visibility and proactive control, which can be leveraged by both SOAs and the Web services that support them."

Actional provides organizations with solutions that enable them to maximize the value of their Web service network deployments. With Actional's active Web services broker, SOAPstation, companies can begin to realize return on investment (ROI) at the project level, leading to a more rapid adoption of SOAs throughout the industry. Actional also helps companies continue to manage their maturing SOA with a full line of Web services management products that monitor and control the entire enterprise Web service network. Key customers benefiting from Actional's Web services management solutions include AT&T, Cara, Charles Schwab and Verizon.

*The survey, commissioned by Actional, was conducted by the Palo Alto Research Group, where 429 IT professionals at Fortune 2000 companies were polled in May 2003.

About Actional Corporation

Actional is the Web services management market-share leader, committed to delivering solutions that help organizations avoid the cost and complexity of unmanaged Web services deployments. The company's Web services management platform enables organizations to dramatically reduce the impact of constant change inherent in dynamic enterprise Web services environments. Actional's patented technology provides unmatched visibility, flexibility and active control across the entire Web service network -- ensuring uptime while dramatically reducing the costs of ongoing Web services management. Actional is a privately held company headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with offices across the US, Canada and Europe. More than 100 of the Global 2000 including AT&T, Cara, Citrix, Sabre, Charles Schwab and Verizon use Actional's products in their mission-critical enterprise environments. Strategic partners include Microsoft, SAP and Oracle.