Embeddable User Interface Tool Creates New Class Of Interactive User Displays, Slashes Development Time

PARIS, France and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 15, 2001 - ILOG® (NASDAQ: ILOG; NM France: SICOVAM: 006673) today unveiled ILOG JViews for Workflow for developing a new class of interactive user displays for workflow and business process management. Available in the latest release of ILOG JViews Component Suite™4.0, the new product is expected to reinvent user displays for this fast-growing application segment by showing steps in a business process as "living" objects, instead of static charts and diagrams. This provides a more realistic depiction of the process, allowing business managers to take action immediately on the data shown, resulting in more throughput and greater efficiency. The new ILOG JViews is the first turnkey user display designed specifically for workflow, providing all customizable components and editors specifically for this application.

With the new product, ILOG is tapping into the business process management (BPM) market that AMR Research estimates will grow to $800 million in 2001, with a strong 112% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) over the next few years. According to AMR, a key component of BPM software is process modeling, which facilitates the creation and modification of processes via a dynamic graphical modeling environment - like the kind announced by ILOG today. ILOG JViews for Workflow also facilitates the creation of advanced monitoring displays, also called "executive dashboards," which provide animated views of each step of a business process as it is executing.

Prior to the availability of the new ILOG JViews developers would have to build workflow modeling and monitor displays themselves and may end up with a more primitive interface than users would like. In addition, the creation of such sophisticated displays requires skills and expertise in graphics, visualization and graph layout that may be lacking in many companies, assuming the company had the time to develop its own user interface display. ILOG estimates that modeler and monitoring interface developers can cut their development time by as much as 80 percent by using its turnkey solution.

"We are building an entirely new enterprise application that increase the efficiency of large engineering organizations as well as the productivity of individual engineers. Best-of-breed workflow automation and visualization, like ILOG JViews, plays a crucial role in our ability to create software that users actually want to use," said Ravi Gorur, VP of R&D for Intersect Software. "We believe ILOG JViews for Workflow can help us save years in development effort in these areas. It is also an incredibly easy and extremely powerful building block for any software development effort involving workflow visualization and monitoring."

With the new workflow product, ILOG is leveraging its expertise in developing advanced displays for the network management industry, where its products are so widely used they have become a de facto standard. Like network management, workflow management is highly complex, involving vast quantities of data, different technologies and platforms, with geographically dispersed people who must access the data to identify problems and make more informed business decisions.

Key Features: Visualizing Processes Better
With JViews for Workflow, ILOG incorporates key features that draw on the company's expertise in advanced graphics, while addressing the specific needs of workflow management, including:

• A full-featured workflow modeler that includes a set of pre-defined icons and connections based on Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) specifications, as well as a complete set of editing tools for drawing sophisticated process diagrams.
• Smart diagram "layout" algorithms that automatically organize the elements of the process flow diagrams to obtain more readable, more usable, diagrams.
• Tools for the creating intuitive custom monitoring and administrative displays geared to the business manager end user. These displays connect to the underlying system data and can be used to highlight process flow problem areas (such as task bottlenecks), giving the business manager a valuable tool to detect throughput problems.
• Flexible client-side deployment options, including traditional power clients for workstations and "thin clients" for ubiquitous browser-based displays. The release also provides the first user interfaces to support scalable vector graphics (SVG), an emerging eXtensible Markup Language (XML) Web standard.
• Customizable look-and-feel using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which allows companies to easily create their own "look and feel."

The new ILOG JViews 4.0 targets Independent Software Vendors embedding workflow and business process management features into their platforms. This includes Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), content management and Business-to-Business Integration (B2Bi) software vendors, among others.

Pricing and Availability
ILOG JViews for Workflow, the 4.0 release of the ILOG JViews Component Suite, is expected to be available on May 21 for all Windows, Unix and Linux platforms running JDK 1.2 or later. Pricing starts at $6,500.

About ILOG
Dually headquartered in Paris and Mountain View, Calif., ILOG is the world's leading supplier of C++ and Java software components. ILOG's embeddable optimization, visualization and business rules software components dramatically shorten development times for enterprise software applications in the supply chain, telecommunications, transportation and financial services industries. In addition to optimization applications where ILOG enjoys significant market share, the company is taking an active role in the e-business software-components market. Visit www.ilog.com for additional information.

ILOG is a registered trademark, and ILOG JViews Component Suite is a trademark, of ILOG. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.