FAST and NEON Systems Partner to Bring Enterprise Search to Mainframe Data; FAST Enterprise Search Platform to be Integrated with NEON's Shadow RTE Mainframe Integration Platform

Business Wire, Dec 15, 2005

OSLO, Norway & SUGAR LAND, Texas -- Fast Search & Transfer(TM) (FAST(TM)), the leading developer of enterprise search and real-time alerting technologies, and NEON(R) Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: NEON), The Mainframe Integration Experts(TM), today announced a partnership that will integrate FAST's industry leading enterprise search solution, FAST ESP with NEON's Shadow RTE mainframe integration platform. This seamless integration will enable companies to easily find and act upon data residing in mainframe systems that is traditionally difficult and cumbersome to access.

Shadow RTE(TM), the industry's first Mainframe Services Bus (MSB), is a robust technical architecture and consolidated development environment that enables customers to integrate mission critical mainframe resources into a Real-Time Enterprise. Shadow RTE supports mission critical mainframe interoperability for the world's largest public and private sector enterprises, upholding the highest standards of mainframe quality of service - security, performance, reliability and manageability - to ensure the availability and integrity of mission-critical integrated processes.

NEON's partnership with FAST will enable customers to search all the data and applications that reside on the mainframe and utilize this information for various business applications and scenarios, including compliance and fraud protection.

"The world's largest organizations still rely on mainframes for their system of record for business critical data, therefore the ability to access this data in a logical, relevant manner can improve business agility considerably," said Mark Cresswell, President and CEO, NEON Systems, Inc. "We see our partnership with FAST providing a key enabler for companies to more rapidly identify and use relevant mainframe information for increased business efficiency."

"Real-time access to mainframe data was a major obstacle to business integration prior to technologies like NEON's Shadow RTE. Now, with the data more readily available, organizations are faced with the challenge of how to quickly and intuitively locate and use the data," said Ali I. Riaz, president of FAST. "Partnering with NEON will enable companies to access mainframe data and utilize the data to solve real business issues. For example, try to imagine how difficult it is to integrate data and systems when two major banks merge. With the combination of FAST's enterprise search technologies and NEON mainframe solutions, there would be a single access point for all data across systems, saving valuable time and resources."

FAST has transformed enterprise search from a powerful, yet narrowly perceived function, into an enterprise-wide strategic and tactical capability of pivotal importance. FAST ESP and FAST's portfolio of solutions and search derivative applications (SDAs) supply a complete information retrieval solution ideal for a growing number of key vertical markets and applications including e-commerce and Internet portals; financial services; government; life sciences; media and publishing; and telecommunications. For FAST, the search never stops.

NEON's Shadow RTE serves as the foundation for the company's industry leading mainframe integration products. A distinct departure from point integration solutions, Shadow RTE provides a single, unified platform to reduce the complexity of mainframe integration, supporting Web services, real-time events, direct SQL data access and screen integration for seamless interoperability between mainframe and distributed systems. For organizations with significant investments in mainframe systems, Shadow RTE functionality translates into faster development and deployment of new, high value applications, streamlined business processes and real-time access to enterprise data and logic regardless of where it resides within the enterprise.

About NEON Systems

NEON Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: NEON) -- the Mainframe Integration Experts -- is a leading provider of enterprise-class mainframe integration solutions. Shadow RTE provides the industry's first Mainframe Services Bus (MSB) to support the entire range of requirements for Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) and Event-Driven Architectures (EDA) - essential foundation elements needed to support the Real-time Enterprise. For organizations with significant investments in mainframe systems, Shadow RTE dramatically reduces the cost and complexity associated with mainframe integration. A single unified platform for mainframe integration translates into faster development and deployment of new, high value applications, streamlined business processes and real-time access to enterprise data and logic regardless of where it resides within the enterprise. With extensive mainframe integration expertise, NEON is uniquely qualified to solve the complexities of supporting new business initiatives and reporting requirements that intersect with critical mainframe systems. For more information on the Powering the Real-time Enterprise, see our Web site at http://www.neonsys.com or call 800-505-NEON.