Patrick Townsend & Associates Announce Support for IBM WebSphere MQ; Alliance B2B eCommerce Products Leverage WebSphere MQ to Provide Cross-Platform, Back Office eCommerce Services

Business Wire, June 26, 2001

Business/High Tech Editors

OLYMPIA, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 26, 2001

Patrick Townsend & Associates announced today the support of IBM WebSphere MQ(Note A), formerly MQSeries, for the company's suite of Alliance B2B back office eCommerce applications.

WebSphere MQ provides an easy-to-use method of integrating applications on UNIX, Linux, Windows NT servers and desktops, IBM zSeries and S/390 mainframes, Web servers, and wireless devices using a common interface. Townsend's Alliance B2B products provide a rich set of B2B services that run on the IBM iSeries eServer platform.

The Alliance B2B suite from Townsend provides a broad range of back office eCommerce services. These include EDI and XML translation, PGP encryption, secure FTP data transfer, Web integration, CSV and tab-delimited conversions, report distribution, print and data publishing to the web, Zip file compression, and other services critical to B2B eCommerce. The IBM iSeries platform provides a scalable and affordable server platform for eCommerce applications.

The addition of an WebSphere MQ connector to the Alliance B2B suite means that customers who have many different kinds of computer systems in the Enterprise can consolidate their back office B2B services on an Alliance platform. They can rely on the rock solid dependability and any-to-any connectivity of IBM WebSphere MQ to deliver their data.

Patrick Townsend, president of Patrick Townsend & Associates, said "Imagine having one platform that can perform all of your EDI and back office communications, and that platform can do this for your mainframe, UNIX, Windows, Web server, AS/400, and every other platform in your organization. That's the power that WebSphere MQ brings to the Alliance B2B suite of products. WebSphere MQ has a standard and easy-to-use interface that runs everywhere. It's the de facto standard for Enterprise middleware. We're happy to be offering the WebSphere MQ connector in our products."

The WebSphere MQ connection in Alliance products means that customers have an inexpensive way to accomplish many complex B2B tasks. For example, a mainframe customer might generate a Purchase Order and send it to the Alliance platform using WebSphere MQ. Alliance receives the Purchase Order, converts it to ANSI X.12 format, encrypts the ANSI X.12 document, delivers it to a vendor over the Internet using Secure FTP transfer, and then sends the recipient an email notification of the order. When the vendor ships the order the ship notice is received by Alliance using secure FTP, decrypted by Alliance PGP, translated from ANSI X.12 format to DB2 format, and sent to the mainframe using WebSphere MQ. With WebSphere MQ any of these services can be performed for any computing platform in the organization.

Paul Ohmart, the developer of the Alliance WebSphere MQ interface for Townsend, says "This new interface gives our business partners and customers the ability to combine the unique services provided in the Alliance B2B application suite with the 'go anywhere' capability of WebSphere MQ. Enterprise developers who know WebSphere MQ will be able to quickly take advantage of Alliance technologies."

About IBM WebSphere MQ

IBM WebSphere MQ, formerly MQSeries, is the most widely used message-queuing software on the market, enables users to exchange information between applications across more than 35 different platforms, from mainframes to PCs. This award-winning software enables business integration throughout the enterprise, allowing companies to maximize e-business opportunities by leveraging existing resources to improve speed-to-market and anticipate IT changes as their business changes. IBM's Business Integration with WebSphere MQ family of products, which includes IBM's WebSphere MQ, WebSphere MQ Integrator and WebSphere Process Manager, addresses the critical areas of IT management: messaging, application and information integration and business process automation. For more information on WebSphere MQ, visit http://www.ibm.com/software/ts/mqseries/.> About Patrick Townsend & Associates

Patrick Townsend & Associates provides eCommerce, EDI and communications solutions for iSeries, AS/400 and NT platforms. The company can be located on the web at http://www.patownsend.com, by email at info@patownsend.com, or by phone at 800/357-1019. International: 360/357-8971.

Note A: Indicates trademark or registered trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. All other products or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.