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PLUMTREE SOFTWARE TO LAUNCH J2EE VERSION OF PORTAL SOFTWARE

Enterprise Web leader Plumtree Software unveiled plans to offer a Java Platform, 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) version of its portal software by the middle of 2004, designed to run within a broad range of Java application servers hosted on UNIX, and later, Linux operating systems. Plumtree plans to continue developing the .NET version of its portal alongside this new J2EE version, as part of a Radical Openness strategy to open the Enterprise Web to every major application server, security system, content repository, development environment and operating system. A new white paper on the Plumtree Corporate Portal 5.0J is available to the public at www.plumtree.com/03/5.0J/.

Plumtree customers are supportive of Plumtree's coming Java technologies product. "Chartered welcomes the Plumtree Corporate Portal 5.0J, including the portal's greater compliance to the J2EE open development standards," said Roy Kannan, chief information officer at Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, one of the world's top three dedicated semiconductor foundries. "At Chartered, our business model gives flexibility and openness to our customers in their selection of manufacturing solutions and design services through our third-party alliances. We applaud Plumtree's strategy of providing a scalable Web platform and giving users the flexibility to grow their worldwide portals on different types of application servers."

"'Radical Openness' is our strategy to be the first enterprise software company not just to support .NET or Java technologies, but to live within both worlds," said Plumtree CEO John Kunze. "Beyond the planned 5.0J release of the portal, we want to be the first Enterprise Web vendor to outline a vision of software completely permeable to the applications developed by customers and third parties, in which all the components of the Enterprise Web can be embedded in any application, and any Web application can be delivered and managed within the Enterprise Web."

"This strategy also calls on us to systematically build on all the repositories, productivity tools, security systems and databases in an organization by offering new integration points across not just the portal, but our entire suite," Kunze continued. "Giving customers cross-platform deployment options with a J2EE product is just the first step. Radical Openness is nothing less than a re-imagination of how software is built for the Web which is the only environment sufficiently open and flexible to accommodate all the dynamics of heterogeneity and change across the enterprise."

"We applaud Plumtree's commitment to the Java community, Web services and radical openness," said Mark Bauhaus, vice president of Java Web Services for Sun Microsystems Inc. "That level of flexibility, choice and performance is key to the combined value of Plumtree's software in conjunction with Sun's Java Enterprise System."

Plumtree Commitment To J2EE And Radical Openness

Plumtree began its support of Java technology three years ago when the company released its first set of integration products based on Java code. For the last two years, Plumtree has offered a UNIX portal with a Java Servlet user interface and a Java programming interface. The Plumtree UNIX portal is currently deployed to customers such as Chartered and Zimmer Holdings.

The 5.0J version of the portal software is expected to have the same features, functionality and server architecture as the 5.0 Windows product but will have a re-designed Java kernel, and will use many J2EE components and specifications including JDBC for access to multiple databases, JMX for management and monitoring of the portal server, JNDI for naming and directory services, and JNI for JVM communication. In addition, both J2EE and .NET versions of the portal are designed to support the new Java portlet standard JSR 168.

The 5.0J portal design draws extensively on the J2EE application server, but uses the same HTTP-based Web Services Architecture as the Windows portal for communicating with other systems and the same parallel processing technology for communicating with a large number of Web services simultaneously. This Web Services Architecture helps ensure compatibility with all other components of the Plumtree Enterprise Web Suite, including Java-based Collaboration and Content Servers, and Plumtree's integration Web services and development tools. Plumtree expects customers may run the 5.0 Windows and 5.0J versions of the portal within the same deployment, as the two are being designed to work together.

With the anticipated releases of the 5.0J version of the portal, Plumtree plans to test application and Web servers including Apache Tomcat, BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere and Sun Java System Application Server, running on Sun Solaris and IBM AIX operating systems. Plumtree currently plans to offer Linux support later in 2004.

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