Progress Software Acquires Intellectual Property Rights From Award-winning E-services Company

Business Wire, Nov 15, 2000

Business/Technology Editors

BEDFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 15, 2000

XML Expertise Acquired from X-Collaboration Software Corporation

Accelerates Next Generation of E-Business Messaging

Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS), a leading supplier of technology for building e-business solutions, announced today that it is purchasing assets from X-Collaboration Software Corporation, a three-year-old software company and the recipient of ASPNews.com's "Most Innovative ASP" award at the March 2000 ASP European Summit.

Progress Software has acquired intellectual property from this Boston-based company, including software, collaborative services and patent applications. Additionally, Progress Software has retained a group of the company's core engineers. Comprised of XML experts, the engineers' expertise will further extend the leadership capabilities of SonicMQ(TM), Progress Software's E-Business Messaging server, which provides a reliable transport and exchange of business-critical data over the Internet. The X-Collaboration technology and people will help to accelerate the next generation of SonicMQ's E-Business Messaging infrastructure.

"X-Collaboration's e-services infrastructure was already running on top of SonicMQ," said Richard Chung, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of X-Collaboration. "Progress' vision with SonicMQ together with the assets from X-Collaboration, provide perfect synergy in delivering the next generation of E-Business Messaging." SonicMQ represents a major evolution over previous generations of messaging products and is widely recognized as the leader in E-Business Messaging. SonicMQ natively supports Internet standards and is based on the Java Message Service (JMS) specification, which provides a common set of interfaces, messaging concepts and programming strategies.

"With the recent push for B2B marketplaces to incorporate advanced XML technology and create an open infrastructure, this acquisition will be a valuable addition to our SonicMQ strategy," said Dan Potter, Vice President of Marketing at Progress Software. "X-Collaboration's e-services including workflow, document management and patent pending collaborative methodologies will further extend SonicMQ's leadership position as the premier enabling technology for e-business application development and integration."

Through widespread customer adoption and licensing agreements with leading J2EE application server vendors such as Bluestone Software, GemStone and IONA Technologies, SonicMQ is the de facto standard for JMS. SonicMQ has also been chosen by many leading e-commerce companies and has won numerous awards, including Java Pro Magazine's Readers Choice Award for Best Java Messaging Tool, Best Java Middleware from attendees at the SIGS Conference for Java Development, and a World Class Award from Java Developer's Journal.

About Progress Software Corporation

Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ:PRGS) is a global supplier of software products and services for developing, deploying and managing e-business applications. Progress Software Corporation offers messaging servers, application servers, databases, and application development and management products.

Progress Software Corporation's partners include more than 2,000 application service providers (ASPs) and independent software vendors (ISVs) who supply annually over $5 billion in Progress(R)-based applications and related services. Progress Software Corporation's products are used by over 10,000 organizations across 100 countries worldwide, including 60% of Fortune 100 companies. For more information, visit www.progress.com or call 1-781-280-4000.

Progress and SonicMQ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Progress Software Corporation in the United States and other countries. Java(TM), Java Message Service, JMS and all Java-based marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.