webMethods Extends SOA/BPM Leadership With Acquisition of Cerebra's Semantic Metadata Management Technology
August 21 2006 - 9:00AM
PR Newswire (US)
webMethods Tackles IT Complexity With Addition of a
'Self-Populating' and 'Self-Maintaining' Metadata Repository for
SOA and BPM; Customers to Benefit From Faster Development and
Extended Reuse FAIRFAX, Va., Aug. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- webMethods,
Inc. (NASDAQ:WEBM), a leading business integration and optimization
software company, today announced that it has acquired
substantially all of the assets of Cerebra, Inc., a privately-held
leader in semantic metadata management technology. Cerebra's
technology will be embedded as a differentiating feature within
future editions of webMethods' flagship product suite. webMethods
Fabric(TM) brings together advanced business integration and
business process management (BPM) technologies within a proven
service-oriented architecture (SOA) infrastructure to help
enterprises continually improve their most critical processes.
Cerebra's technology will serve as webMethods' federated metadata
repository. It will provide users with greater visibility and a
richer understanding of available software assets and their
associated metadata histories. Commonly defined as 'data about
data,' metadata is the descriptive information used to define IT
assets, including Web services, documents, business processes,
governance policies and user profiles. What differentiates
Cerebra's approach to metadata management is its use of semantic
technology. Semantic information enriches the understanding of
metadata by providing additional context to its meaning and usage.
In complex and dynamic business processes, semantic information
documents the interrelationships between assets. This provides
users with a clear understanding of operational dependencies as
well as the anticipated impact of proposed changes. Cerebra's
technology automatically captures and defines these
interrelationships and establishes rules to govern and categorize
metadata. This minimizes the need for manual maintenance of
metadata, which is a primary barrier to widespread adoption, by
creating a 'self-populating' and 'self-maintaining' metadata
repository. "webMethods has long recognized the opportunity for
enterprises to extend reuse to their entire portfolio of IT assets,
including services, business rules and processes, data and
infrastructure. This is in sharp contrast with our competition's
more limited view of reuse," said David Mitchell, president and
CEO, webMethods, Inc. "This acquisition advances our vision for
reuse by enabling us to offer our customers the most advanced,
standards-based technology for managing the underlying metadata
that is essential to the reuse of all IT assets." According to a
recent report from Gartner, Inc, [CIOs: Metadata Improves Four
Critical IT Activities by Jess Thompson (May 26, 2006)], "As an
organization embarks on initiatives such as service-oriented
architecture (SOA), business process management and data
integration, it accrues a complex system of interrelated assets.
Effective ownership of these assets requires: Governance; Life
Cycle Management; Operations Management; and Communication and
Collaboration. Metadata is fundamental for accomplishing these
activities." Within webMethods Fabric, Cerebra's technology will
automate the capture and maintenance of semantic metadata within a
shared repository. This repository will extend asset reuse by
allowing users to search for the most appropriate IT asset based on
established run-time criteria. The documentation of these
interrelationships also simplifies change management as downstream
dependencies can be readily analyzed and understood at design-time.
"Despite the image typically presented by most modeling tools,
business processes are both dynamic and transitory. With each
component of the process possessing its own rules, parameters, and
interrelationships, which frequently change based on a variety of
circumstances, more complex processes simply breakdown due to the
incompatibility of many of these interrelationships," said Marc
Breissinger, CTO, webMethods, Inc. "When used to enrich a specific
process, semantic metadata helps overcome inconsistencies by
providing a higher level of agreement to meaning and intent. This
allows for the richer orchestration of the transactions and
interactions that fundamentally define the process. The end result
is that semantic metadata enables higher levels of automation, more
assured decision-making and greater efficiency throughout the
process." In addition to leveraging the technology within its own
solutions, webMethods expects to pursue additional OEM
opportunities. Specific applications for the technology include
advanced information integration, product portfolio management and
master data management, financial compliance and assurance, and
decision-support scenarios. About Cerebra, Inc. Cerebra's
technology builds upon key W3C standards, including the Web
Ontology Language (OWL) and the Resource Description Framework
(RDF), to enhance the interoperability and run-time integrity of
metadata. Through the use of independently-defined metadata schemas
and an inference engine that is able to interpret the meaning and
context of assets and their dependencies, new views of the metadata
can be applied dynamically without the need to recategorize the
underlying data. This dynamic classification of metadata increases
business agility by helping to manage BPM and SOA-based complexity.
It also speeds development by making relevant assets more readily
accessible, works to eliminate costly redundancies, simplifies
change management, and supports the enforcement of governance
policies and procedures. Cerebra is headquartered in Carlsbad, Ca.
About webMethods, Inc. webMethods (NASDAQ:WEBM) provides business
integration software to integrate, assemble and optimize available
IT assets to drive business process productivity. webMethods
delivers an innovative, enterprise-class business integration
platform that incorporates proven integration technology with next
generation capabilities into one interoperable set of tools that
delivers a unique combination of efficiency, agility and control.
webMethods combines industry leadership with a zealous commitment
to customers to deliver tangible business value to more than 1,400
global customers. webMethods is headquartered in Fairfax, Va., with
offices throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia Pacific and Japan. More
information about the company can be found at
http://www.webmethods.com/. The webMethods name and logo are
registered trademarks of, and webMethods Fabric is a trademark of,
webMethods, Inc. All other marks mentioned are trademarks or
service marks of their respective companies. This press release
contains various remarks about the future expectations, plans and
prospects of webMethods that constitute forward-looking statements
for purposes of the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. securities
laws. In some instances, forward-looking statements can be
identified by the use of the words "believes," "anticipates,"
"plans," "expects," "intends," "may," "will" or similar
expressions. Specific forward-looking statements relate to future
market opportunities for, performance of, and integration of
acquired technology into, webMethods' products, solutions and
services. Actual results of webMethods may differ materially from
those indicated by these forward- looking statements as a result of
various risks and uncertainties, including the impact of economic
conditions, geopolitical factors, seasonal factors, competitive and
pricing pressures, terrorism and related uncertainties in the U.S.
and abroad on the company's customers and prospects and their IT
spending budgets and priorities; variations in the size and timing
of customer orders and demand for software offered by webMethods;
impact of rapid technological change; and these and other risks and
uncertainties discussed more fully in webMethods' SEC filings,
including those discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of
webMethods' Form 10-K for the year ended March 31, 2006, which is
on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and may be
accessed at http://www.sec.gov/ or webMethods' investor relations
web page at http://www.webmethods.com/investors. webMethods
disclaims any obligation to update or correct any forward-looking
statements made herein due to the occurrence of events after the
issuance of this press release. DATASOURCE: webMethods, Inc.
CONTACT: Media: John Conley, +1-703-460-5996, , Industry Analysts:
David Precopio, +1-703-460-2501, , or Investors: Christopher
Martin, +1-703-460-6609, , all of webMethods, Inc. Web site:
http://www.webmethods.com/
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