webMethods Extends Long-Term Commitment to Common Standards by Joining the Interop Vendor Alliance.

Unites with Other Industry Leaders in Supporting Efforts to Enable Simplified Integration with Microsoft-based Solutions

FAIRFAX, Va. -- webMethods, Inc. (Nasdaq: WEBM), a leading business integration and optimization software company, today announced that it has joined the Interop Vendor Alliance (www.InteropVendorAlliance.org).

webMethods will be working with Microsoft, the initiator of this collaborative effort, and other key vendors, including BEA Systems, CA, EMC, GXS, Software AG, and Sun Microsystems, to simplify integration and improve interoperability with Microsoft-based solutions. webMethods' participation in the alliance is driven by the company's long-term commitment to common standards and shared best practices as a means for overcoming the complexity associated with heterogeneous systems.

"As customers seek to leverage service-oriented architecture to reduce development costs while improving business agility, the need for real-world solutions for achieving more universal interoperability becomes paramount," said Marc Breissinger, chief technology officer, webMethods, Inc. "We view the Interop Vendor Alliance as an excellent forum for helping to address this goal as it recognizes the widespread influence of Microsoft technology within Global 2000 enterprises. With the wider availability of 'plug & play' solutions for complex integration scenarios, enterprises can reduce their total cost of ownership while more readily taking advantage of new innovations and emerging business opportunities."

The Interop Vendor Alliance is designed to better connect people, data and diverse systems through enhanced interoperability with Microsoft technology. The organization serves as a collaborative forum for developing and sharing common technology models, facilitates scenario-based testing of multi-vendor solutions, and works to communicate additional best practices to users.

Based on the completeness and ease-of-use1 offered by its flagship product suite, webMethods Fabric[TM], as well as its out-of-the-box support for key industry standards, webMethods has long focused on time-to-implementation and benefit as a key differentiator.

Coupled with the product suite's support for the reuse of existing services as an alternative to custom development, webMethods customers have reported significant reductions in the overall time required to complete specific projects. The company's added support for the Interop Vendor Alliance is designed to extend this value proposition by enabling faster integration and more comprehensive interoperability with Microsoft-based solutions.

"Addressing the complexity inherent within heterogeneous systems is an overriding, day-to-day concern for most IT organizations," said Tom Robertson, GM of Interoperability and Standards, Microsoft Corporation. "Based on their leadership with many of the underlying technologies and standards for enabling improved interoperability, we're delighted to have webMethods join our efforts to further reduce IT complexity. Their participation in the Alliance should be viewed as welcome news by joint customers."

Since the company's founding, webMethods has provided significant support for a number of major standards bodies and interoperability initiatives. For example, webMethods proposed one of the first standards for service-oriented computing to the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) in 1997, served as principal architect for RosettaNet and is a founding member of the UDDI consortium.

Through its continuing participation in key standards groups, including the W3C, OASIS and the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Organization, webMethods has aided the development and advancement of key Web services standards such as SOAP 1.2, WS-BPEL 2.0, XML Schema, WSDL 2.0, UDDI, WS-Addressing, WS-Policy, WS-Notification and WS-RX. webMethods' long-term collaboration with Microsoft includes the recent development of the WS-MetadataExchange and WS-Discovery specifications.

1In a recent Forrester WAVE analysis of the Integration-Centric Business Process Management Suites (IC-BPMS) market in which webMethods was named a leader, Forrester Research noted that the "vendor has expanded its scope to include enterprise application integration (EAI), electronic data interchange (EDI), and, most recently, business process management (BPM), giving it the most comprehensive and easy-to-use integration suite on the market." [src: webMethods Captures The Lead In The Latest ICBPMS Product Evaluation - The Forrester Wave[TM] Vendor Summary, Q4 2006 by Ken Vollmer and Henry Peyret with Mike Gilpin and Megan Daniels (December 20, 2006)]

About the Interop Vendor Alliance

Formed in 2006, the Interop Vendor Alliance is an industrywide group working to identify and share opportunities to better connect people, data and diverse systems through better interoperability with Microsoft systems and to jointly market interoperability solutions of its members. Additional information about the Interop Vendor Alliance can be found on its Web site at http://www.interopvendoralliance.org.

About webMethods, Inc.

webMethods (Nasdaq: WEBM) provides business integration software to integrate, assemble and optimize available IT assets to drive business process productivity. webMethods delivers an innovative, enterprise-class business integration platform that incorporates proven integration technology with next generation capabilities into one interoperable set of tools that delivers a unique combination of efficiency, agility and control. webMethods combines industry leadership with a zealous commitment to customers to deliver tangible business value to more than 1,500 global customers. webMethods is headquartered in Fairfax, Va., with offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia Pacific and Japan. More information about the company can be found at www.webMethods.com.

The webMethods name and logo are registered trademarks of, and webMethods Fabric is a trademark of, webMethods, Inc. All other marks mentioned are trademarks or service marks of their respective companies.