IT FACTORY Enables Rapid Development of Collaborative XML Web Services with Version 2.0 of Microsoft Development Technology

Business Wire, Oct 1, 2001

Business/Technology Editors

MEC 2001

ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 1, 2001

ITF Development Center 2.0 Provides Single-Click SOAP-Enabling of

Application Objects; Adds Vital Administrative and Deployment

Functionality

IT FACTORY, Inc., a leading global supplier of knowledge technology solutions, today announced version 2.0 of ITF Development Center for Microsoft, the company's award-winning visual development tool for rapidly building collaborative applications on both Microsoft Exchange 2000 and SharePoint Portal Server. Microsoft developers can now instantly enable their application as an XML Web service with the ability to automatically generate a SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) interface with a single mouse-click. In addition, version 2.0 of ITF Development Center introduces an MMC (Microsoft Management Console)-compliant administrative console that greatly eases the deployment, management and maintenance of enterprise applications. Finally, IT FACTORY has added a host of new application templates that enable developers to quickly add ready-made functionality into their own development projects, giving them a substantial head-start in rolling out their applications.

"XML Web Service applications have become a top priority across all types of organizations, as they provide such a significant cost savings, and represent the most secure way of future-proofing your enterprise applications today," said Lars Johansen, president and CEO of IT FACTORY. "We are significantly improving an organization's ability to roll out collaborative XML Web service applications by automating the process of creating a SOAP interface to applications. What normally would take a good developer many hours to construct, we are providing with just a single mouse-click."

XML Web services are designed to be accessed remotely, via the Internet or corporate Intranet, using industry standard protocols (SOAP as the common access protocol and XML as the common data language), enabling a pivotal improvement in interoperability among disparate enterprise data systems. This provides an enormous cost benefit for organizations that need to deploy the same application functionality across a broad range of departments or workgroups, which, under a Web services architecture, needs only to be built once and can then be easily deployed broadly across the organization. Additionally, XML Web services enable organizations to make its application functionality accessible by partners or other third parties via the Web, while also ensuring straightforward interoperability with the partner data system.

Version 2.0 of IT FACTORY's ITF Development Center for Microsoft represents the most cost-effective means available today for rapidly building and deploying collaborative Web service applications based on Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server. In addition, IT FACTORY's development technology gives organizations an assured growth path to future technology platform releases, including Microsoft's forthcoming .NET technology implementations. Most significantly, the SOAP data objects created in ITF Development Center are fully forward-compatible with impending .Net Web Services protocols, ensuring that object development work today can be fully leveraged when an organization moves to a .NET Web Services architecture. Moreover, ITF Development Center keeps today's application development within the architectural bounds required for conversion to these future releases.

Microsoft is actively promoting IT FACTORY's ITF Development Center among its customers, partners and ISV community as a key enabling technology in Microsoft's XML Web services strategy. "ITF Development Center is an essential tool for any organization looking to build XML Web service applications based upon Exchange and SharePoint Portal Server, and is especially important for those companies looking to move to a .NET architecture in the future," said Keith McCall, Exchange Solutions Product Unit Manager for Microsoft. "IT FACTORY is clearly committed to staying at the forefront of collaborative XML Web service development, and to providing its customers with a clear path to .NET. They have made a significant investment in this technology that many Microsoft customers will benefit greatly from."

ITF Development Center for Microsoft accelerates the task of developing Exchange- or SharePoint Portal-based applications by providing an object browser, or visual development interface, within the Microsoft Visual InterDev Web development system. This intuitive interface leverages an organization's investment in MS Visual InterDev training, and enables essentially any developer familiar with Visual InterDev to easily construct and manage object-oriented Exchange or SharePoint Portal applications. IT FACTORY's Microsoft development technology significantly lowers the cost, effort and training requirements for developing applications based on Exchange or SharePoint Portal. What previously may have required a week or more of programming takes just hours using ITF Development Center.