Software AG Accelerates Process Improvement, SOA Enablement and Enterprise Integration with webMethods 8.0

Business Wire, June 24, 2009

• With newest release of webMethods, Software AG introduces the world’s first integrated Business Service Repository, linking SOA with Process Improvement initiatives
• Enhanced capabilities of webMethods reduce by 25 percent or more the time and cost of improving processes and integrating systems and partners
• New platform capabilities facilitate the Business-IT collaboration needed for enhanced visibility into services and processes and overall company performance
• Latest release unveiled at the Gartner SOA & Application Development and Integration Summit, June 24-25, in London, England

RESTON, Va. -- Software AG, a global leader in business infrastructure software, today announced the latest release of its flagship webMethods platform, webMethods 8.0. The release enhances the ability of companies to capitalize on both open architecture and existing infrastructure investments, reduces the time and cost to improve processes and integrate systems, and enables dramatic end-user productivity through tighter collaboration between IT and the business.

With webMethods 8.0, Software AG continues to address the mission-critical business infrastructure software requirements of global enterprises with an emphasis on bringing together systems and partners and automating and improving processes that deliver faster time to value. Enterprises with large-scale projects can reduce time and cost by 25 percent or more, experiencing millions of dollars in savings. And, today’s CEO is looking across all areas of the company to reduce cost, increase productivity and align IT with the business.

“In an increasingly competitive global environment, it is important that companies tie IT investments to business improvement, and get results quickly,” said Dr. Peter Kuerpick, Chief Product Officer and Member of the Executive Board, Software AG. “webMethods 8.0 enables companies to accelerate their process improvement and SOA initiatives through improved reuse, streamlined development, and tight alignment of business and IT services. As a direct result, organizations can go “live” much faster and more cost-effectively, and business users can more easily drive continuous innovation and improvement.”

“With webMethods 8.0, Software AG delivers a wealth of new functionality to satisfy customer demand, demonstrating our continued commitment to innovation that is vital to our industry leadership and competitive advantage,” Dr. Kuerpick added.

The latest release expands on webMethod’s market-leading capabilities by adding:

• CentraSite ActiveSOA, the world’s first integrated Business Service Repository to uniquely tie business process management (BPM) to service-oriented architecture (SOA), providing instant inspiration, reuse and change management to both the business and IT teams
• Enhanced Business Process Management, with a new paradigm in end-user productivity through collaborative personal workspaces
• webMethods Mediator, a new service mediation solution
• A unified, Eclipse-based design environment for building, deploying, and managing projects across the SOA, BPM and Integration lifecycles
• Embedded Business Intelligence to deliver process analytics to knowledge workers, allowing them to easily compare real-time performance against historical trends for informed decision-making
• Business user self-service with intelligent applications and personal workspaces

With the tight integration of CentraSite ActiveSOA, Software AG offers the industry’s first unified repository for business and technical services. Until now, organizations have been forced to maintain SOA assets in one registry and keep business process assets in a separate silo, thus forcing a disconnect between SOA and Process Improvement initiatives. webMethods 8.0, in conjunction with CentraSite ActiveSOA, puts all assets—including web services, integration-related services, and business process models, KPI’s and more—in a single unified repository. This union of process and SOA governance provides visibility for IT and business users to collaborate, linking SOA assets directly to business initiatives – a major leap forward in the SOA and BPM markets.

According to Gartner, Inc., a leading industry analyst firm, “Service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) enable each other, but process governance must be coordinated with SOA governance to provide visibility and policy enforcement across multiple siloed domains.”1 webMethods 8.0 focuses on sharing actionable assets across IT and business for just these types of benefits.