WEBM Webmediabrands (MM)

Addition of Infravio's Extensive SOA Governance Capabilities Accelerates webMethods' Marketplace Momentum FAIRFAX, Va., Sept. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- webMethods, Inc. (NASDAQ:WEBM), a leading business integration and optimization software company, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held Infravio, Inc. for approximately $38 million in cash. The deal is expected to close during the month of September 2006 and it is anticipated to be accretive to webMethods' earnings per share (EPS) beginning with the quarter ending March 31, 2007. Infravio is the leading pure-play provider of service-oriented architecture (SOA) registry and governance solutions. SOA governance enforces the policies and procedures that determine how developers, IT staff and business users leverage and utilize services throughout the entire SOA lifecycle, from initial design and run-time to ongoing changes in the system. SOA governance creates alignment and enables collaboration across these disparate groups while allowing each participant to maintain their own distinct view of services and policies. "Infravio has been the key to governing Providence Health System's award-winning, enterprise-scale SOA," said Mike Reagin, CTO, Providence Health System, Oregon. "This has enabled us to consolidate acquired systems and dramatically improve the flexibility of mission-critical IT systems." Once integrated within the webMethods Fabric(TM) product suite, Infravio's leading SOA registry and governance solutions, coupled with the semantic metadata technologies recently acquired from Cerebra, will enable users to accelerate SOA adoption throughout their enterprise. Customers will benefit from these enhanced capabilities in two distinct ways: -- Guided SOA Governance(TM) -- SOA best-practices built into the product make a wealth of knowledge immediately accessible to users, while interactive tutorials are used to shorten the learning curve. This approach rapidly extends user proficiency, ensuring greater consistency and quality in the development process while reducing costly trial-and- error. -- Enterprise-scale SOA -- webMethods' integrated SOA platform helps organizations deliver and maintain service-level agreement (SLA) backed, enterprise-class Quality of Service while also facilitating expanded reuse of services. These additional features enabled or improved by Infravio include automatic content validation, service level agreement management, security enforcement, versioning and impact analysis, with Infravio's patent-pending contracts manager, Service Delivery Contracts(TM), used to improve the configurability and agility of services. These features are further enhanced by webMethods' recently acquired semantic metadata technology, which describes business assets in common, clear terms, facilitating broader and simpler reuse across the enterprise. According to leading industry analysts, SOA governance is essential to a successful enterprise SOA. Specifically, Gartner, Inc. states [Service-Oriented Architecture Craves Governance by Paolo Malinverno (January 20, 2006)], "[s]ervice-oriented architecture governance isn't an option -- it's an imperative. The bigger the SOA is, the more governance it needs, and the more-complex the governance roles and mechanisms must be. Governance arrangements take a long time to design and install, and are difficult to enforce, but without them, every SOA project out of pilot phase is at risk." "With the acquisition of Infravio, combined with our recent acquisition of Cerebra, we are demonstrating our commitment to doing SOA the right way -- a way that actually addresses real market needs and challenges," said David Mitchell, president and CEO, webMethods, Inc. "With the addition of these industry leading products, we continue to capitalize on the leadership that we have established while positioning ourselves for accelerated growth in one of the fastest growing segments for IT spend." Infravio's award-winning products and expertise have been leveraged throughout numerous Fortune 1000 customer implementations, including Allianz Life, Level 3 Communications, Lockheed Martin, The McGraw-Hill Companies, MCI-Verizon, Providence Health System, and Sprint-Nextel. "The strategic importance of governance cannot be overstated as this separates SOA from just a bunch of Web services," said Srinivas Balasubramanian, CEO and co-founder, Infravio, Inc. "As our customers demonstrate, SOA governance is critical to delivering the reliability and assurances associated with enterprise-class, business-critical performance and its equally fundamental to achieving positive, long-lasting return on investment." Infravio's registry, repository and SOA governance solutions are expected to be integrated within the webMethods Fabric product suite by the calendar fourth quarter of 2006. In the interim, Infravio's current products will continue to be offered on a standalone basis. Infravio has approximately 65 employees, including 50 developers in its offshore development facility in Chennai, India. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions. Conference Call Information: webMethods will host a conference call at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time today to discuss the company's acquisition of Infravio. The conference call will be available via telephone by dialing 1 (877) 468-1591 in North America or 1 (706) 679-0585 outside North America, or via webcast at http://www.webmethods.com/investors. A replay of this call will be available through September 15, 2006. Please dial 1 (800) 642-1687 in North America and 1 (706) 645-9291 outside North America, confirmation number 6252826. 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/. About Infravio, Inc. Infravio, Inc. is The SOA Governance Company. Founded in 1999, Infravio has deep expertise through award-winning Fortune 1000 customer projects. The Infravio X-Registry(TM) Platform provides SOA builders with visualization, design time, run time, and change governance across the lifecycle. It features the patent pending Service Delivery Contracts(TM) to improve the configurability and agility of services. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Infravio is backed by venture capital firms, Walden International and Crystal Ventures. 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 the closing of the acquisition of Infravio and future market opportunities for, performance of, and integration of Infravio's 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: closing of the acquisition is subject to various closing conditions; 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; the 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: Christopher Martin, Investors, +1-703-460-6609, , or Media: David Precopio, +1-774-266-3400, , or Alexis Carena, Industry Analysts, +1-703-460-6611, Web site: http://www.webmethods.com/

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