DataDirect Technologies Named to SD Times 100 List and Winner of Database Management Systems Category

Business Wire, June 27, 2007

Company Recognized for its Innovation and Range of the Industry's Most Advanced Data Access and Integration Technologies Available

BEDFORD, Mass. -- DataDirect Technologies, the leader in data connectivity and mainframe integration and an operating company of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), was named to the 5th Annual SD Times 100 list for 2007, recognizing the leaders and innovators of the software development industry. As a winner in the database management systems category, DataDirect Technologies' connectivity and integration tools continue to set the mark for others in the industry, as heralded by the publication.

DataDirect Technologies is the only comprehensive provider of software for connecting the world's critical business applications to data and services, running on any platform using proven and emerging standards. With comprehensive support for ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET, XML, SOAP and XQuery, DataDirect helps thousands of developers worldwide connect applications running on any platform to virtually any data source. For DataDirect customers, the company's drivers and data providers are a strategic part of their software-development process. More than 300 independent-software vendors including seven of the top 10 vendors worldwide, and thousands of enterprises rely on DataDirect Technologies to simplify and streamline data connectivity for distributed systems and to reduce the complexity of mainframe integration.

"The winners of this year's SD Times 100 awards have demonstrated their leadership in shaping the software development industry," said David Rubinstein, Editor-in-Chief of SD Times. "We took into account each nominee's products and services, its reputation among development managers, and the new ideas it brought out. These select individuals and organizations are the ones we've identified as helping to move the art of development forward."

2006 marked an agenda-setting year for DataDirect Technologies as the company expanded its technical offering through acquisition and maintained an aggressive product release schedule. The following milestones undoubtedly factored into the SD Times 100 selection criteria.

* DataDirect XQuery Paves the Commercial Path: DataDirect Technologies has been instrumental in the development of the XQuery W3C standard and commercial adoption of the language. The DataDirect XQuery([R]) product is the most well supported, robust commercial XQuery implementation for XML. Testing W3C XQuery 1.0 in enterprise software applications, one DataDirect customer has found that the DataDirect XQuery product processes data up to seven times faster than other XQuery-based offerings. It can also support huge XML files of 50 gigabytes or more while maintaining superior performance and memory-consumption requirements.

* Shadow RTE marks five-year anniversary as the first Web services product for the mainframe: With the acquisition of mainframe integration leader NEON Systems in the previous year, DataDirect Shadow RTE saw significant new functionality and market value in 2006. Shadow RTE was the first product to market with the ability to exposed mainframe functionality as SOAP-based Web services. Acting as a transformation engine, converting the most comprehensive range of mainframe data, business logic and screen-based assets into reusable industry standard components, Shadow RTE accelerates the development of mainframe Web services and SOA enablement.

* DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET version 3.0: As the only suite of ADO.NET data providers built on 100 percent managed code, DataDirect's data providers enable developers using the most recent version of Microsoft's .NET development platform to securely, quickly and efficiently access application-critical data from any major database including Oracle, DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server. This unique architecture eliminates dependency on database client library software and offers enhanced performance, reliability, scalability and simplified deployment - independently proven to outperform applications coded in native database languages.

* OpenAccess SDK added to portfolio of products: DataDirect extended its support for standards-based data access to specialized data sources and applications with the acquisition of OpenAccess in November 2006. Now, DataDirect customers can easily create SQL interfaces to their proprietary applications and data sources - gaining access to everything from relational databases, to mainframe databases, to proprietary file formats and applications.

"DataDirect's inclusion on the SD Times 100 is a testament to our comprehensive product line and our commitment making it easier for software developers to tackle challenging data access and mainframe integration tasks," said John Goodson, vice president of product operations at DataDirect Technologies. "Our customers routinely report increased revenues, improved programmer productivity and faster, more scalable applications."

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