Forum Systems Adds Stephen Norris to Board Of Directors; Norris Brings 20 Years of Management Experience to Help Guide Rapid Growth of Web Services Security Company

Business Wire, Jan 24, 2005

SALT LAKE CITY -- Forum Systems, Inc., a leading provider of trust management and threat protection Web services security solutions, today announced the addition of Stephen L. Norris to its board of directors. Norris, who brings 20 years in finance, management and private investment experience to Forum, will help the company scale operations to support its rapid growth. Forum's award-winning product suite continues to be deployed throughout the world's largest corporations in sectors including financial services and e-commerce as well as government agencies to secure their mission critical business applications utilizing XML, Web services and service oriented architectures (SOAs).

During his career, Norris has structured, negotiated and closed transactions including growth capital opportunities, industry consolidation strategies and successful initial public offerings. He is a principal owner of Washington Investment Partners, L.L.C., a Washington D.C. private merchant bank. Most recently Norris served on the board and as an investor in Synixis Corp., which was sold to Sabre. He was also co-founder of the Carlyle Group and the firm's first president. In this role, Norris recruited the company's founding team, raised its founding capital, and secured billionaire financier George Soros as an investor in one of Carlyle's most successful funds. In addition, Norris was principal advisor to his HRH Prince Royal Prince Alwaleed Bin Tal Al Saud in his investments in Citicorp, Four Seasons, and Euro Disney.

Prior to this, Norris was a corporate vice president of Marriott Corporation in Washington, D.C. Among other honors, Norris was appointed by President George Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as one of the five board members of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, and was a Fellow at Yale Law School.

"Web services and standards have evolved to the point of being deployed both for internal as well as external applications within Global 1000 corporations, and are beginning to trigger a large scale adoption by the mid-market. We are preparing to scale for this growth with a world-class management team," said Wes Swenson, president and CEO for Forum Systems. "Our flexible product suite and OEM partner model is winning customers because it gives them an adaptive path to Web services security while leveraging existing infrastructure for a greatest return on investment."

According to leading industry analyst firms, companies of all sizes continue to attest that XML and Web services are becoming the dominant model for exchanging information and conducting electronic business transactions. ZapThink, LLC predicts that the Web services security market will be a $4.4 billion industry by 2006.

"Forum's customer-driven, business approach to product and market development and its vision for the future of data-level networking attracted me to the company. I believe Forum is best positioned to drive this market to the next phase of its evolution and am excited to be part of this industry-wide effort," commented Norris.

About Forum Systems, Inc.

Trustworthy, ubiquitous and robust Web services can only be achieved by combining security controls that are proactive, always on and systematic. Forum Seamless Security Solutions Architecture (Forum S3A(TM)) is an adaptive approach to building security-minded service-oriented applications and data-level networks. Forum Systems Web Services Security solutions include vulnerability management, testing systems, firewalls and gateways. Availability: software, PCI-card and appliance.

Forum Systems, Inc. is the Leader in Web Services Security(TM) with a comprehensive suite of trust management, threat protection and information assurance solutions for the automated Web. Forum Systems flexible hardware, software and embedded products make vibrant business communications possible by actively protecting XML data and Web services across networks and business boundaries. Forum's products have been chosen by over 80 Fortune 1000 industry leaders and are winners of Network Computing Magazine's Well-Connected 2004 Award and Product of the Year 2004 Award, Network Computing Magazine's Editor's Choice 2003 Award, Network Magazine's Product of the Year 2003 Award and DEMO 2004 Invitation. http://www.forumsys.com/.> All product and service names herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

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