IONA Proves Commercial Applicability of Java Business Integration Specification; Participates in Demonstration of JBI Interoperability at 2005 JavaOne Conference

Business Wire, June 27, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO -- IONA(R) Technologies (NASDAQ: IONA), a world leader in high-performance integration solutions for mission-critical IT environments, will highlight how the company's Artix(TM) Extensible Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) natively supports the emerging Java Business Integration (JBI) standard. In demonstrations to be conducted at the 2005 JavaOne(SM) Conference, IONA, along with Sun Microsystems, Oracle, SAP, and other participants, will showcase what a commercial implementation of the JBI specification may look like and how JBI can be used to achieve interoperability between integration components written using different vendors' software.

The JBI specification, which was recently approved by the Java Community Process (JCP), defines a standard container in which components from multiple vendors and various integration technologies can interact. JBI can be defined as both the JBI Pluggable Architecture and the JBI Service Assembly. The JBI Pluggable Architecture is an open, extensible architecture that enables the collaboration between integration technologies and Web services. The JBI Service Assembly is a single standard document that describes a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) "application." It contains all routing information and artifacts that make up a SOA application. Artix, IONA's extensible ESB, provides solutions for organizations facing highly complex and demanding enterprise integration challenges in the enterprise, and this capability is now enhanced through support for JBI.

"The advancement of the JBI specification is an important step toward the ability of organizations to build distributed architectures based on open standards," explained Eric Newcomer, CTO, IONA. "A plug-in based ESB, such as Artix, that supports the JBI specification is important because JBI represents a significant industry potential for achieving true plug and play compatibility between ESBs and integration components from other vendors, such as registries, business process engines, and sophisticated security servers."

The JavaOne JBI demonstration mimics the typical online loan application process from initial capture of borrower information in a Web-based form to filing the completed application. IONA's Artix is the foundation underlying the Loan Filing Engine that persists the user data to the application's file system. In addition, the IONA demonstration showcases a seamless integration between the Artix ESB and core elements of the Java Enterprise System, easing SOA enablement.

"As a JBI-compliant ESB, Artix provides important value to the JBI community. By implementing JBI, Artix will provide extensible and flexible solutions to their customers based on this exciting new industry standard." said Joe Keller, Vice President of Product Marketing, Sun Microsystems Inc. "We are pleased to collaborate with IONA to grow the JBI partner ecosystem and provide more options and flexibility for customers of JBI-based solutions."

"The ESB market, which includes Artix, is evolving into a separate category within the larger integration space," said Shawn Willett, principal analyst, Current Analysis Inc., Sterling, VA. "JBI is rapidly emerging as a potentially important specification as customers look for a lower cost, distributed, framework that assumes services end points."

About IONA

For more than a decade, IONA(R) Technologies (NASDAQ: IONA) has been a world leader in delivering high-performance integration solutions for Global 2000 IT environments. IONA pioneered standards-based integration with its CORBA-based Orbix(R) products. Artix(TM), IONA's extensible Enterprise Service Bus, enables existing enterprise systems to be integrated with an organization's common infrastructure components.

IONA is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with U.S. headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts and offices worldwide. For additional information about IONA, visit our Web site at http://www.iona.com.

IONA, IONA Technologies, the IONA logo, Orbix, High Performance Integration, Artix, Mobile Orchestrator and Making Software Work Together are trademarks or registered trademarks of IONA Technologies PLC and/or its subsidiaries. Sun, Sun Microsystems and JavaOne, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. CORBA is a trademark or registered trademark of the Object Management Group, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks that may appear herein are the property of their respective owners.