Progress Software Announces Enhanced Standards-based Internet Messaging Server

Business Wire, April 26, 2000

Business/Technology Editors

BEDFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 26, 2000

Progress' SonicMQ Offers Industry-Leading Performance, Additional

Platform Support for Integrating B2B and Enterprise Applications

Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS), a leading supplier of application development, deployment and management products and services, today announced Progress(R) SonicMQ(TM) 2000.1, a new version of its award-winning Internet messaging server for accelerating electronic commerce.

Extending the lead in providing enterprise-class messaging, the new version of SonicMQ offers unmatched performance--including 30 percent faster delivery of point-to-point messages over the original version of SonicMQ--broader platform support and additional security. As the first--and to date only--Java-based messaging server from a major vendor, SonicMQ 2000.1 gives developers a way to meet increasing scalability requirements for business-to-business and electronic commerce.

SonicMQ 2000.1 also offers enhanced HTTP tunneling support, to handle applets in all deployment situations including firewalls and proxy servers.

With 2000.1, SonicMQ now supports certified HP-UX and IBM AIX, in addition to Windows NT, Sun Solaris and Linux, thus extending the potential market for the product to support most of the major network operating systems. The new release also boosts performance and will work seamlessly in applications that depend on real-time interoperability (see accompanying release, "Progress SonicMQ Outperforms IBM MQSeries").

"We are currently employing SonicMQ 2000.1 to enable an eProcurement application called eLinx to communicate via APIs to a variety of ERP systems such as SAP and to wireless devices such as Palm Pilots," said Ed Tobias, director of catalog development at ChanneLinx.com. "SonicMQ has been essential in allowing us to do so in a seamless method. The security, HTTP tunneling, and ActiveX components allow us to deploy SonicMQ connections from a variety of applications that use Java or VB." Based in Greenville, South Carolina, ChanneLinx.com is a B2B enabler, with products that include online ordering, an electronic catalog and an XML transaction processor / translator.

"This new release will further increase SonicMQ's rapid acceptance," said Progress Software's director of Internet technologies Dan Potter. "SonicMQ now supports over 70 percent of all network platforms in the market and we are working to further expand our support for legacy back-office environments."

"The growth in online business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-commerce makes the need for a secure, reliable delivery mechanism for every transaction more critical than ever," said Gary Barnett, middleware analyst and research director at OVUM, Inc. "With expanded platform support and even higher performance, this new release of SonicMQ means that users have more choices when it comes to strategic messaging technology."

SonicMQ is based on the Java Message Service (JMS) specification, part of the Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) standard from Sun, which provides a common set of messaging concepts and programming strategies enabling Java developers to add enterprise messaging capabilities to their applications. SonicMQ enhances the basic JMS specification, providing the speed, robustness and flexibility essential for scalable performance.

Unique among JMS implementations, SonicMQ 2000.1 features:

--  XML extension--SonicMQ includes a message type for eXtensible
    Markup Language (XML), providing the capability for universal
    interoperability and inclusion of DOM/JMS for easy integration and
    processing. XML is an easy-to-read flexible metalanguage that is
    becoming the standard format for data exchange;

--  Hub-and-spoke architecture with clustering--helps ensure reliable
    large-scale throughput;

--  Graphical administration--Java-based administration eases
    configuration and management and allows administrators to manage
    the system remotely. Accompanying command-line tools provide
    powerful options for detailed settings;

--  Hierarchical name spaces--SonicMQ allows topics to be defined in a
    hierarchical structure, so topics can contain subtopics. Clients
    can subscribe to the appropriate topic level to receive the most
    relevant information.

Major vendors such as IONA Technologies and SAGA Software have embedded SonicMQ into their solutions.

Availability

SonicMQ 2000.1 is available immediately. It ships in three versions: SonicMQ Enterprise Edition, a fully featured product for deployment configurations and complex development environments; SonicMQ Developer Edition, which allows developers to build and test messaging applications; and SonicMQ Small Business Edition, which allows for up to 50 concurrent users connecting to a single broker.

All SonicMQ products are certified to run with Oracle8i, Microsoft SQL Server V7.0 and Progress RDBMS 9.1 as well as its own internal database. SonicMQ runs on Microsoft Windows NT, Sun Solaris, Linux, HP-UX and AIX.