Sonic Exchange 2003: A must-attend event for all Sonic users

Johannesburg — 02 Apr 2003 — Sonic Software, distributed in SA by Progress Software, is to host Sonic Exchange 2003, its first annual premier technology conference, in Boston from 13 to 16 April.

This is a forum where technical experts and business partners converge, and share in-depth knowledge and practical experience that helps them address the integration challenges of today's real-time business world.

"Sonic Exchange is the place to be for enterprise architects, integration project leaders and CIOs interested in this next generation of flexible, extensible enterprise integration infrastructure," says Rick Parry, Progress Software SA MD. "Customers, partners and Sonic staff will have the opportunity to share their experience and expertise in addressing the challenges of building real-time business infrastructure, leveraging the power and flexibility of Sonic products to the utmost."

Sonic Exchange 2003 invites participants to explore key capabilities of the SonicXQ enterprise service bus (ESB) and service-oriented architectures, discuss the latest integration standards and develop real-world techniques for optimising SonicMQ deployments.

Sonic Exchange offers integration architects and developers an opportunity to meet top members of the Sonic team and gain a deeper understanding of technologies shaping the modern enterprise integration platform. It highlights new tools and techniques to help maximise a Sonic investment and minimise expenses.

The Exchange will help customers to uncover pragmatic answers to today's challenges from extending existing applications and integration applications with external partners. In addition, Exchange attendees are welcome to attend any of the technical breakout sessions.

And finally, winners of the First Annual Sonic Software Excellence Award will be announced during the conference. The Excellence Awards recognise the best in enterprise integration and messaging deployments that use Sonic products.

Additional information and nomination forms are available at www.sonicsoftware.com/excellence and registration for the exchange is at www.sonicsoftware.com/exchange/.

About Progress Software South Africa

Progress Software South Africa is a subsidiary of US-based Progress Software Corporation, the world leader in the embedded database market. The company provides the underlying software technology and services required for successfully developing, deploying, integrating, and managing e-business solutions. Progress actively pursues innovative technologies and new business opportunities that allow companies to make an effective transition to true e-business environments. Progress's OpenEdge platform enables its partners to deliver lowest cost-of-ownership applications that are rapidly implemented and easily integrated within and across the extended enterprise. The company's extensive partner base includes more than 2 000 application partners and application service providers who supply more than $5 billion in Progress-based applications and services annually. Over 50 000 organisations across 100 countries — including 70% of the Fortune 100 — rely on Progress technology.

About Sonic Software Corporation

Sonic Software is the inventor and leading provider of the enterprise service bus (ESB), a new communication and integration infrastructure that supports the enterprise requirements of a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Sonic's technology delivers the scalability, security, continuous availability and management capabilities necessary to connect, integrate and control distributed, mission critical business processes. Over 1,000 customers use Sonic products to achieve broad-scale interoperability of IT systems and the flexibility to adapt these systems to ever-changing business needs.

Sonic Software is an operating company of Progress Software Corporation (Nasdaq: PRGS), a global software industry leader. Headquartered in Bedford, Mass., Sonic Software can be reached on the Web at http://www.sonicsoftware.com, or by phone at +1-781-999-7000 or 1-866-GET-SONIC.

Press Contacts: