NEON Systems and HandySoft Partner to Deliver Web-Enabled Business Process Workflow Solution for the Mainframe

Business Wire, Feb 19, 2002

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SUGAR LAND, Texas & VIENNA, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 19, 2002

NEON(R) Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:NESY), a leading provider of data access, legacy renewal, and OS/390 enterprise system management solutions, and HandySoft, a leading innovator of business process software, have announced a comprehensive solution for providing mainframe connectivity to HandySoft's BizFlow(R) customers via NEON Systems' Shadow(R) Direct(TM) product.

HandySoft's Web-enabled, enterprise-level process management engine, BizFlow, meets industry demands for a collaborative workflow product that is accessible to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. Shadow Direct provides business customers with an efficient, easy-to-use, and flexible solution for integrating OS/390 data sources and transaction environments into composite applications, such as Web servers, application servers, packaged applications, or client/server computing environments. HandySoft's BizFlow 7 solution used with Shadow Direct eases integration of mainframe data and transactions into new business processes that are distributed and shared between non-mainframe systems, applications, and human resources.

"The mainframe is not going away," said Mark Cresswell, NEON Systems Vice President, Shadow Division. "Rather, it is becoming clear to everyone that mainframes will host critical enterprise data and business logic for the foreseeable future. This partnership makes leveraging the value of such enterprise data and business logic within composite, cross-enterprise business processes, a simple exercise.

"Organizations can continue to enjoy the inherent benefits of a mainframe environment while implementing new business practices. Sacrifices do not need to be made in order to uphold ever-changing business standards," said John Salimbene, HandySoft Vice President of Marketing. "Through this partnership, we now hold a valuable key to unlocking the mainframe, by satisfying critical security issues and allowing mainframes to share information with company portals and other Web services. Other companies may offer limited access or a piece-meal solution to the mainframe from non-mainframe environments, but BizFlow offers the only complete business process solution for mainframe access."

BizFlow is a comprehensive set of Web-enabled, collaborative tools and a powerful process management engine that provides companies with productivity-enhanced solutions through simplification, automation and integration of business processes. BizFlow is platform agnostic, providing an open, flexible, and extensible architecture that enables organizations to leverage their current IT infrastructure. Its ability to integrate with legacy systems provides consistency of information between systems throughout an organization.

As the "gold standard" for OS/390 interoperability, Shadow Direct provides direct access to ADABAS, CICS, DB2, IMS/DB, IMS/TM, NATURAL, and VSAM from a single architecture without the necessity of a mid-tier gateway. The standard integration APIs employed by Shadow Direct include JCA, JDBC, SQLJ, ODBC, and SQL. The JDBC driver for Shadow Direct is certified by Sun as J2EE compliant.

About HandySoft

HandySoft is a global software company offering open, scalable, collaborative and business process management solutions that transform the way organizations work by improving the management and refinement of internal and external business processes. Built on standard technologies like SOAP, XML, and WSDL, BizFlow delivers the Complete Process Advantage. HandySoft offers innovative, efficient, off-the-shelf solutions for effectively conducting business activities across the enterprise in a highly secure environment. BizFlow focuses on delivering process management solutions in the areas of: collaboration, administration, application, and integration. With offices in Northern Virginia and the Pacific Rim, HandySoft has software installations at over 380 sites, with over 2.5 million users worldwide, and is quickly becoming a leading collaborative and business process management solutions provider. For more information about HandySoft or BizFlow, please call 800/753-9343 or visit www.handysoft.com.

About NEON Systems

NEON Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:NESY) is a leading provider of powerful data access, legacy renewal, and OS/390 enterprise system management solutions. Today, many of the Fortune 100 are using NEON Systems solutions to enable transparent access to System/390 data and transactions from the Internet or distributed computing environments -- all without custom coding. NEON's IMS/CICS utilities enhance and maintain high availability, integrity, and performance while consistently outperforming competitor products. NEON's iWave(R) Helpdesk Integrator product provides a powerful integration solution for organizations with multiple helpdesks. For more information, visit www.neonsys.com or call 800-505-NEON.

NEON is a registered trademark and iWave Integrator, iWave, and the NEON logo are trademarks of NEON Systems Inc. in the USA and in other select countries. HandySoft, the HandySoft logo, and BizFlow are trademarks of HandySoft Corporation.