NEON Systems and Contivo Partner to Extend Vocabulary Management Capabilities for Accelerated Mainframe Integration

Business Wire, Dec 8, 2005

SUGAR LAND, Texas -- NEON(R) Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:NEON), The Mainframe Integration Experts(TM), today announced a referral partnership with Contivo, Inc., the leading provider of automated data integration solutions, to extend vocabulary management capabilities to mainframe databases and service-enabled applications. Together, NEON and Contivo will provide organizations with a solution for creating a common syntax for data that resides on mainframe and distributed platforms, thereby simplifying the re-use of data artifacts and accelerating the development of composite applications.

Today, mainframes still remain as the data and transactional repository for the world's largest organizations. Interest in mainframe application and data re-use has grown with the introduction of new technologies such as Web services and Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA). For mainframe integration to be successful, it is critical that service-enabled applications and data elements on mainframes - which are semantically similar to their counterparts on distributed platforms - are represented in a common, familiar manner to application developers who are responsible for building the next generation of composite applications.

Contivo helps enterprises integrate data quickly and more effectively than traditional hand-coded, manual methods. The Contivo Vocabulary Management Solution provides a central semantics-based metadata repository, development tools, infrastructure and code generators that automate data transformation for application integration across multiple platforms. NEON's 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.

To help application developers streamline the development process, NEON and Contivo have partnered to deliver a common vocabulary between semantically similar but syntactically different data items. NEON's Shadow RTE mainframe integration technology provides the extensive XML-based metadata that describes all of the data artifacts existing on the mainframe. The XML representation of the metadata is then imported into the Contivo repository, which in turn creates a common name for semantically similar data to enable easier re-use for current and future application development initiatives. For large organizations with significant investments in mainframe systems, this partnership offers unique value, providing a re-useable repository that can be utilized by multiple divisions for their individual data integration projects.

"We look forward to working closely with NEON Systems to provide solutions that simplify mainframe integration and accelerate the re-use of business critical data," said Keith Feingold, CEO, Contivo. "We share a customer base that is eager to streamline its application development process associated with mainframe integration. Through this partnership our customers can begin building a scalable Service-Oriented Architecture that will benefit their staff with cost efficient, fast, direct access to legacy data."

"Access to real-time information, regardless of platform or technology, is a necessity," said Mark Cresswell, CEO of NEON Systems. "This joint solution provides a common language between mainframe and distributed information which will allow developers to more easily build composite applications. NEON and Contivo are bridging the language barrier between the world's major computing platforms to allow organizations to streamline information flow across their enterprise," added Cresswell.

Future developments between Contivo and NEON will include enabling Contivo's transformation tool to generate maps to run inside the Shadow RTE environment. The two companies are also focusing development resources on enabling Contivo to automatically enforce a consistent application vocabulary for service-enabled mainframe applications and data via Shadow RTE.

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(6366).