Contact:
Nancy Lenehan
Object Management Group
+1-781-444 0404 ext. 142
pr@omg.org

OMG's FastStart Program for MDA Expands With 19 New Service Providers

Needham, MA, USA - October 23, 2003 - The Object Management Group™ (OMG™) announces a major expansion of its Model Driven Architecture® (MDA®) FastStart Program.

The FastStart program's rapidly growing list of Qualified Service Providers (QSPs) has been joined by nineteen new companies: 88 Solutions, ADA Software, Advanced Concepts Center, ATC Enterprises, Inc., Cephas Consulting, Cogenture Limited, Compuware, Data Access Technology, Finantix, Herzum Software, Inherit, LLC, iO Software GmbH, M2VP, Metanology, NT/e, Object Computing Inc., Osellus, Pathfinder Solutions and X-Change Technologies. Scroll down for more information and commentary about the program from each participating company.

Each FastStart QSP has a service organization that has demonstrated extensive practical experience in MDA software development, and is pledged to follow a common MDA FastStart curriculum designed by the OMG. The FastStart curriculum is designed to help end-user organizations quickly integrate MDA into their mission-critical software development activities and clearly demonstrate the practical value of MDA on a real project in as little as 5 weeks. A full description of this unique program can be found at www.omg.org/faststart.

According to Michael Guttman, OMG's FastStart Program Director, "The response to MDA FastStart has been phenomenal. Under the slogan 'The Fastest Way to MDA®', we have assembled a powerhouse of expertise that end-users can leverage to get their MDA programs up and running. Most importantly, the program is structured to deliver highly demonstrable business value in a very short time. MDA is taking off in the marketplace, and this is exactly what end-user organizations have been asking the OMG to provide in order to help them get started."

The MDA FastStart Program incorporates all the elements necessary to make MDA adoption successful in a corporate or institutional business and IT environment. This includes:
Assessment - a thorough assessment of business and technical drivers; Overview - a week long analysis by a seasoned MDA architect used to determine in more detail the technology specifics of the organization's current architectural foundation; Transition - a week long activity resulting in a set of recommendations and a high level plan for introducing and incorporating MDA into the customer's organization; and MDA seminars and an MDA Practicum.

Contact Michael Guttman, Program Director for more information at +1 781-444-0404 or visit the MDA FastStart Program website at www.omg.org/faststart.

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About The OMG
With well-established standards covering software from design and development, through deployment and maintenance, and extending to evolution to future platforms, the Object Management Group (OMG) supports a full-lifecycle approach to enterprise integration which maximizes ROI, the key to successful IT. OMG's standards cover multiple operating systems, programming languages, middleware and networking infrastructures, and software development environments. OMG's Modeling standards, the basis for the MDA, include the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM). CORBA, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture, is OMG's standard open platform with hundreds of millions of deployments running today.
Headquartered in Needham, MA, USA, with a U.S. government representative in Washington, DC, and international marketing representatives in Japan, the UK, and Germany, the Object Management Group is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry specifications consortium. OMG member companies write, adopt, and maintain the organization's standards following a mature, open process. All current OMG specifications may be downloaded without charge from the organization's website, www.omg.org; the site also provides additional information about OMG and its activities. For information on joining the OMG, or questions not addressed on the website, please contact OMG headquarters by email at info@omg.org, by phone at +1-781-444 0404, or by fax at +1-781-444 0320.

Note to editors: The OMG Object Management Group Logo®, MDA®, Model Driven Architecture®, CORBA®, CORBA Academy®, The Information Brokerage®, XMI® and IIOP® are registered trademarks
of the Object Management Group. OMG™, Object Management Group™, CORBA logos™, OMG Interface Definition Language (IDL)™, The Architecture of Choice for a Changing World™, CORBAservices™, CORBAfacilities™, CORBAmed™, CORBAnet™, Integrate 2002™, Middleware That's Everywhere™, UML®, Unified Modeling Language™, The UML Cube logo™, MOF™, CWM™, The CWM Logo™, Model Driven Architecture Logos™ and the XMI Logo™ are trademarks of the Object Management Group. All other products or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Qualified Service Providers

The FastStart program's rapidly growing list of Qualified Service Providers (QSPs) has been joined by nineteen new companies: 88 Solutions, ADA Software, Advanced Concepts Center, ATC Enterprises, Inc., Cephas Consulting, Cogenture Limited, Compuware, Data Access Technology, Finantix, Herzum Software, Inherit, LLC, iO Software GmbH, M2VP, Metanology, NT/e, Object Computing Inc., Osellus, Pathfinder Solutions and X-Change Technologies.
	"Model-driven and model-centric development and operations are the key element in the next evolutionary step of the IT industry. We can help you to make a gentle and successful transition into the future." Manfred Koethe, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, 88 Solutions
	About 88 Solutions 88solutions Corporation was established in early 2002 to bring the condensed experience of multiple decades of intensive research to the market. Our primary focus is on model-driven technologies for enterprise integration, process management and automation, and component-based development. Therefore our Meta Object Facility (MOF-2) implementation and our UML-2 and EDOC inspired graphical modeling engine are core components in our product development work. Based on our products and experience we can provide a broad range of services, ranging from seminars and training all the way to custom technology development and projects. We are also happy to share our long-term standardization experience backed by 10 years of active OMG contribution, as well as contributions to ISO, W3C, WfMC and other groups.

	"ADA has adopted OMG's Model Driven Architecture and is building an MDA compatible library of Reusable Business Process Models and Business Component Models from its existing Repository. The winning combination of MDA and Reusable Enterprise Business Component supported by Software Factories offers an excellent "Future Proof" Solution to ADA's Global clients. ADA's "Software Recycle", Legacy Transition Solution is built around capturing existing designs and software assets for reuse applying OMG's Model Driven Architecture." DK Bose, Principal Consultant & CEO, ADA Software Group
	About ADA Software ADA Software functions as a high quality technology resource and is an organization dedicated to providing outstanding value and meticulous service. ADA actively promotes & practices Model Driven Architecture®, Component Based Software Engineering and reuse of Business Components & Designs. With Software Factories in India and the Netherlands, ADA's global clients are serviced by local IT professionals & consultants from ADA Group companies in the USA, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Scandinavia and the Middle East. Since its inception in 1991, ADA has been an active and motivated advocate of Distributed Object Technology, through its "Think Objects" initiative. ADA's Principal Consultant and CEO, Mr. DK Bose, represents Object Management Group in the Indian continent and promotes OMG & its standards. ADA's education arm, Object Academy offers Training/Mentoring services in Distributed Object Technology in General and courses on OMG's CORBA/IIOP, UML, Java, J2EE and C++ in particular. ADA actively promotes OMG's UML Certification Program (OUCP) from UTI, Japan.

	"As a long term member of OMG, the ACC is honored to be designated as a MDA FastStart QSP, this OMG initiative will enable organizations who are genuinely interested in reaping the benefits of MDA to gain a competitive edge." Dave Bieg, Managing Partner, ACC
	About Advanced Concepts Center About Advanced Concepts Center, LLC is a learning solutions company focused on educating information technology professionals in IT concepts, software development methodologies, processes, project management, databases, operating systems and programming languages. The ACC offers a broad range of powerful knowledge transfer products that can be designed into full service ACC corporate learning solutions that rapidly build IT skill proficiency. From objects, components, and design architectures, to databases, UNIX, and .NET, through J2EE, WebSphere and web development, the ACC provides cost competitive and cost effective learning solutions. Whether a small, technology focused group or a large enterprise, the ACC blends curriculums and delivery options with expert technology practioners to offer the highest quality, IT learning and retention experience possible. The ACC prides itself on learning the business, and tailoring the solution, to address our clients' specific needs.

	"ATC is proud to be a charter member of the OMG's MDA FastStart program. As an MDA Qualified Service Provider, ATC looks forward to extending the proven success our pioneering clients have enjoyed to a wider audience. Having long been practitioners of OMG initiatives, joining as voting members and participating in the MDA FastStart program are an exciting culmination towards sharing our practical experiences and contributing to the industry." Bobbi Underbakke, President/CEO, ATC Enterprises, Inc.
	About ATC Enterprise, Inc. ATC Enterprises, Inc., is a service delivery organization that provides clients with a strategic advantage by enhancing their capability to successfully apply technology to respond and adapt in a competitive business environment. ATC makes a valuable impact on project success by delivering a consistent vision through integrated process improvement, education, project coaching, and process enactment. ATC's process, Adaptive Team Collaboration (ATCP), is an adaptive, risk-driven, customer-centric approach to business and software development. ATCP is one of the first processes built from the ground-up to support Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) using the Software Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM) and significantly leveraging the Unified Modeling Language (UML). ATC is a voting member of the OMG and regularly presents at international conferences on software process, requirements, object-oriented techniques, UML, software architecture, usability, and project management.

	"Trend-setting enterprises seeking to reduce development costs through shorter lifecycles and overseas labor outsourcing, can find tremendous benefits in adopting the Model Driven Architecture approach. As early adopters, we have successfully implemented MDA and we are very pleased to be among the first to join the OMG's FastStart program. Working with the OMG on expanding the mind share of MDA represents an exciting opportunity for Cephas Consulting. This confirms our position as the premiere source for MDA expertise in Southern California." Frank Truyen, President, Cephas Consulting
	About Cephas Consulting Cephas specializes in creating enterprise level models and infrastructure. We draw on our broad experience in component-based development and distributed computing to help our clients tailor software development processes to their precise needs and capabilities. The success of our customer engagements is measured by increased profitability due to a short and efficient development lifecycle. The necessary ingredients involve a raised level of modeling awareness and the capture of intellectual assets outside application code.

	"Cogenture is delighted to become a Charter QSP and offer OMG FastStart services for MDA. These offerings will complement and augment our existing fixed-price UpSkill packages." Chris Matthews, Cogenture Limited
	About Cogenture Limited Cogenture improves organizations' ability to develop software more efficiently. We offer a number of products and services based upon RUP, UML and MDA industry standards, and IBM Rational, Select and complimentary tools.

	"OMG's FastStart helps IT organizations quickly become familiar with MDA and realize its benefits to their mission-critical application development activities. Compuware is fully committed to supporting MDA through Compuware OptimalJ, through our standards work with OMG, and through the book "MDA Explained," which was co-authored by Wim Bast of Compuware. Our new QSP participation further crystallizes this commitment." Dan Schoenbaum, VP Strategy, Compuware Corporation
	About Compuware OptimalJ and Compuware Corporation Compuware OptimalJ accelerates the development, integration and maintenance of enterprise Java applications--enabling organizations to rapidly respond to business change. It is a model-driven, pattern-based development environment that dramatically reduces the time, cost, risk and complexity associated with delivering and maintaining Java applications. Compuware Corporation, a leading provider of software and technology services, delivers industrial-strength solutions for the enterprise computing environment that dramatically improve productivity, quality and performance across the application life cycle. For more information about Compuware, please visit http://www.compuware.com.

	"The OMG FastStart program provides an excellent opportunity for companies and government agencies to reap the rewards of applying a Model Driven Architecture in minimum time. Data Access Technologies can help build your "solutions factory", integrating your business processes - from requirements to realized solution, based on high-level business models and MDA automation. These models can help automate your business processes, applications and customer or supplier integration efforts. These solutions are based on your business, not the technology of the day. By the end of our FastStart program your organization will have experienced the full MDA life-cycle, from requirements to an executing proof-of-concept system." Cory Casanave, President, Data Access Technologies
	About Data Access Technologies Data Access Technologies enables global computing for government and the enterprise using state of the art methods and products based on MDA. Our specialties are distributed Internet systems, business-to-business e-commerce, component technologies, business process modeling and automated development. Our mission is to make our enterprise and government clients more agile and effective through advanced methods and technologies. DAT is a leader in the standards efforts required for open and interoperable enterprise components.

	"Companies that aim for independence between the functional design and the technical architecture in their IT projects will find in MDA technology the appropriate standard to synchronize the implementation of the two aspects and fasten the realization of their business vision. Finantix helps financial institutes to leverage MDA through existing products and qualified consulting that aim to reduce costs and improve time-to-market. Finantix technologies enable the implementation of robust solutions based on a Service Oriented Architecture concept and a Business Process Management approach." Maurizio Greco, Chief Architect, Finantix
	About Finantix Finantix develops software solutions that help financial institutions better service clients and increase sales.Finantix especially supports retail banks and wealth management organizations with a proven suite of financial components designed to support client relationships and interactions, capture new clients and increase the loyalty of existing ones. Finantix solutions provide both relationship managers and clients with comprehensive functionality including: aggregation of a single client view, financially-focused CRM, personal financial planning and asset allocation, automated product advice, online investment and portfolio management, applications for loans and insurance products and personalized delivery of financial information. All functionality, process-oriented and client-centric, is coherently available across multiple channels. Finantix solutions are used by more than 40 clients world-wide. All Finantix products are based on a state-of-the art implementation of the J2EE standards and architectures: this ensures high flexibility, scalability and reusability and guarantees excellent returns on investment along with reduced total cost of ownership. Finantix was founded in 1991 and currently employs about 100 experienced professionals. The company has offices in Helsinki, London, Los Angeles, Milan, Munich, Singapore and Venice.
	"We see MDA as a key standard for producing re-usable components and services at both the project and enterprise levels." Peter Herzum, Founder, Herzum Software About Herzum Software Herzum Software is an international consulting company specializing in IT strategy, enterprise architecture, software integration and agile software development. COSM™ is Herzum Software's widely-used approach for Agile Software Manufacturing. Enterprises around the world leverage COSMTM to jump-start their projects and to cost-effectively address their IT challenges. Herzum Software is a contributing member of the OMG and is an active participant of the OMG for many years. The founder has chaired a number of Special Interest Groups including the Web Services SIG. Herzum Software: "The agile architecture companyTM".
	"It's a rare opportunity to be in the center of a new technology that will significantly impact how the industry builds, delivers and maintains enterprise solutions. MDA technology allows Inherit to quickly address our customers' aggressive cost requirements and productivity goals without sacrificing quality and maintainability. It's exciting being in on the ground floor of what is destined to become the next wave of software development." \ Robert Mitchell, Principal, Inherit, LLC
	About Inherit LLC Inherit, LLC is a fast growing consulting firm that has provided Enterprise Architecture solutions and services to the government and commercial markets since 1997. From our offices in Atlanta, GA and Northern VA Inherit offers a comprehensive suite of solutions, services and training that provides a competitive advantage to our clients. Inherit's consultants will help leverage object-oriented related technologies, J2EE, .NET, and the newly emerging Model Driven Architecture (MDA) to reduce development cost, effort, time-to-market, and risk as they develop robust systems that meet the requirements of today's competitive business environment.

	"The added value of the MDA FastStart Program for our customers is not only our designation as a Qualified Service Provider," says Richard Hubert, CEO at Interactive Objects. "Just as important is the fact that we can adapt our modular service to our customers' specific requirements, from simple MDA Overview Seminars to the implementation of complete projects." Richard Hubert, CEO, Interactive Objects Software GmbH
	About Interactive Objects Software GmbH Interactive Objects Software GmbH has built a solid reputation as a front-runner in the field of IT consulting and innovative software development platforms such as the ArcStyler. Ever since its foundation in 1990, the company has consistently focused on architecture, design and implementation of object-oriented, component-based software systems. Backed by over a decade of successful project work, Interactive Objects is a competent partner in IT projects from analysis to implementation.

	"We've seen a notable rise in interest regarding Model Driven Architecture, now companies that are searching for a well-defined path to begin implementing an MDA solution have it. With our mentoring experience and the OMG MDA FastStart Program, M2VP is ideally suited to guide organizations in the right direction." Mike Rosen, Chief Technology Officer, M2VP
	About M2VP M2VP provides expert consulting services to assist corporations in applying Model Driven Architecture for business advantage. Our strategic services focus on transition strategies, enterprise architecture review / enablement, reuse strategies and mentoring / knowledge transfer. Application services include business analysis / modeling and service oriented architecture mentoring to modernize software while reducing costs. As a leading provider of MDA FastStart immersion offerings, M2VP is able to transition companies to the practical application of advanced yet proven tools and techniques based on industry standards. For more information, visit www.m2vp.com.

	"We are delighted that OMG has recognized Metanology as a pioneer in model-driven development by granting us QSP status. Metanology looks forward to accelerating industry-wide adoption of MDA by explaining, demonstrating and training organizations to apply MDA through the FastStart program." David Zygmont, President, Metanology
	About Metanology Metanology Corporation has been providing model-driven development products and services since 1998. In addition to MDA FastStart Program offerings, Metanology markets the Model-driven Development Environment (MDE). Built on the Eclipse universal tool platform, MDE is a fully integrated, model driven development environment consistent with OMG's MDA standard. Major U.S. financial institutions use MDE, and Metanology services, to develop robust, production software on both J2EE and .Net platforms.

	"During the last year OCI had been successfully using an MDA approach with a large client. The leverage and agility that the model provided enabled the OCI consultants to rapidly respond to client feedback. Frequent deliveries of working code allowed the client to validate the implementation and progress far more frequently than in their previous experience. The benefits are dramatic and we are happy that the OMG will be formalizing it." Dr. Moshiri, Chief Executive Officer, Object Computing Inc.
	About OCI OCI is an OO software engineering company with offices in St. Louis and Phoenix. OCI has been in business for over 10 years, assisting clients in the design, development and deployment of their infrastructure for large scale, mission critical distributed systems. OCI's lines of business include education, with one of the largest software engineering, OO and distributed computing curricula in the US; open source products, which include the most widely used C++ CORBA ORB, TAO; and enterprise consulting in Java, C++, XML and web services. OCI clients include US DOD and other US government agencies, as well as members of the global Fortune 500 companies in the areas of telecommunications, finance, healthcare, and IT.

	"The OMG QSP program offers the structure and systematic approach for Osellus to extend the full benefits of our process automation solution to software development organizations that have selected a model-centric approach." Omid Hodaie, Chief Executive Officer, Osellus Inc.
	About Osellus Osellus provides process improvement and automation solutions for the software development industry to help select, enhance, model and automate the underlying processes that support application development efforts. The company's IRIS software is the first open standards-based process automation system specifically for software development. It is methodology, process and technology neutral. It can be used to model, enact and monitor both common application development frameworks, as well as unique and customized development techniques. IRIS interfaces to existing development tools to form a common management layer across the full development life-cycle. By adopting a process-centric development model, Osellus customers realize improvements in time-to-market, quality and cost.

	"We are determined to be the premier consulting partner for corporations to implement MDA as a strategic choice within their organisation. By using the influence we already have in the telecoms and financial services market in London and the United Kingdom, we aim to implement MDA with a number of these clients." Brahme van Niekerk, Business Manager, NT/e
	About NT/e NT/e has been providing consultants and mentors of standards based enterprise systems since 1996. It is now excited to offer the OMG MDA FastStart Program. Our experience enables us to offer practical assistance to senior business and technical leaders in the United Kingdom. NT/e is also the author of an implementation of an MDA solution called JeeWiz! which generates reliable J2EE (BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, Oracle & JBoss) and Microsoft .Net systems from abstract models. With our solid reputation, vast experience and practical people we offer a strong incentive for organizations to move critical development to MDA. By simplifying the introduction of MDA and using JeeWiz!, we believe that we can reduce the learning curve and help organizations implement their MDA solutions quickly and easily. We therefore bridge the gap between MDA theory and practical application.

	"Our primary area of focus is on high performance embedded systems, where emerging technology trends have to face the harsh realities of challenging execution requirements. Over the years emerging technology trends have repeatedly failed to deliver practical value in this software segment. We see a substantial and growing active interest in MDA among the large-scale embedded system development organizations that far exceeds "fad" trends. These organizations see strategic opportunity and value in MDA and realize that this will change the way they engineer software - for the better. Pathfinder Solutions is proud to be a member of the OMG's MDA FastStart Program and believe this to be an excellent way take first steps into the world of MDA." Peter J. Fontana, President and Founder, Pathfinder Solutions
	About Pathfinder Solutions Pathfinder Solutions is a leading MDA technology and services provider focused on open, highly configurable model transformation solutions for developers deploying embedded software solutions on real-time or resource-constrained processing platforms. The primary focus of our extensive field experience is the identification and refinement of successful MDA techniques and technology for high performance systems. Leverage this expertise to ensure the success of your MDA efforts through the OMG's MDA FastStart program.

	"To get full value, use MDA not only in the software construction phase, but in every aspect from strategy to operations and maintenance. We use models to attend to the complete, vertically integrated needs of any community that works together. Communities may be parts of single company or may span the company's customers and suppliers. In order to provide the most effective means of integrating all the technologies you need to support your community, we use models across the range of specialties: from information modeling, business rules, and business process design, through project estimation, product evaluation, development management, communications, testing, performance tuning, data management, security, system operations, and disaster recovery." Joaquin Miller, Chief--Architecture Review, X-Change Technologies Group
	About X-Change Technologies Group X-Change Technologies provides a full range of services: information modeling, business rules, business process design, system architecture, project estimation, product evaluation, development management, testing, performance tuning, data management, security, operations, and disaster recovery, as well as reusable Business Domain Model™ products. A very hands-on company, we take advantage of the most recent advances in engineering practice, so we can give up-to-date, experience-based advice and technical direction. We lead the development of the MDA Guide and are a leader in development of the upcoming MDA Reference Model. We have fifteen years of experience in model based architectures. Technology is only our means; our purpose is helping you make money, save money, and increase equity through better integration. Our unique specialty is our people, whose dedication, broad knowledge and experience, tools, techniques, and network of experts is at your service for achieving your integrated business and technology visions.