San Ramon, CA, USA, Aug 30, 2005 - The OSGi™ Alliance today announced IBM as the Lead Sponsor of the OSGi Alliance 2005 Developer Forum & World Congress. IBM has been actively involved with the OSGi Alliance from its inception in 1999 at both the Board of Directors and technical expert group levels and has provided strategically significant contributions to the OSGi Service Platform and the Alliance.

With a focus on the new OSGi Service Platform Release 4 (R4), the OSGi Alliance 2005 Developer Forum & World Congress will draw the world's top experts on commercially available and developing OSGi implementations, also offering focused tracks for the mobile, automotive and home markets. It will include an all-new Developer’s Forum making it one of the most comprehensive events of its type.

“To better serve our customers’ requirements for on demand information and services, the need for a standardized, component-based Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) spanning information systems from mobile phones to enterprise systems has never been greater," said Craig Hayman, IBM Software Group Vice President Development, IBM Workplace, Portal & Collaboration Software. "IBM considers the standards and technologies produced by the OSGi Alliance and its members to be vital to that goal. We are proud to have been involved with the OSGi Alliance from the start, driving various releases of the specification and working with the industry to advance the OSGi Alliance and its mission."

This is the fourth year of top tier sponsorship by IBM, highlighting the strategic significance that IBM places on the OSGi Alliance to drive convergence of applications and services in the multiple markets that IBM serves. The annual OSGi Alliance Developer Forum & World Congress is open to the public and includes exhibitions, keynote presentations and breakout seminars targeted at experts and novices alike. Agenda sessions will illustrate the benefits of the OSGi Service Platform Release 4 for end-users, network operators, and manufacturers and focus on how to easily deploy, provision, maintain, and manage applications and services to wired and wireless networked devices.

"We're very pleased to have IBM as a major sponsor," said Dr. John Barr, President of the OSGi Alliance. "The acceptance of the OSGi Service Platform has exploded over the last year, with framework developers, device manufacturers, and service providers releasing OSGi enabled products and services. IBM has made significant contributions to the success of the OSGi Alliance."

"There are several key technology standards including XML, HTTP, SOAP and WSDL that are critical to a mature, comprehensive SOA. The technologies standardized at the OSGi Alliance are among them," said Jim Colson, IBM Software Group Distinguished Engineer, Chief Architect - IBM Client Software. "Release 4 of the OSGi Service Platform is landmark technology and key to a deployable SOA for the industry."

IBM provides infrastructure for on demand environments based on open industry standards like those of the OSGi Alliance. With billions of smart devices interacting, the problems of integration cannot be solved with an exclusively proprietary approach. The OSGi Service Platform is a vital link in the value chain of open industry standards that make possible new worlds of on demand, integrated business solutions based on intelligent, networked devices in businesses, industry, vehicles, the home, and even mobile environments like mobile phones. With the IBM Service Management Framework™, the OSGi Framework component of IBM Workplace Client Technology, Micro Edition; WebSphere Everyplace Micro Environment, a Java Virtual Machine (JVM) environment; Eclipse and WebSphere Studio Device Developer development tools; DB2® Everyplace, and Cloudscape™ databases; MQSeries® Everyplace message queuing systems; combined with WebSphere and Lotus® server software; and consulting services from the world's largest IT services organization, IBM Global Services, IBM provides a complete range of OSGi technology based business solutions.

The OSGi Alliance 2005 Developer Forum & World Congress will be held in Paris, France October 11-14, 2005, and on-line registration is currently open at www.osgicongress.com.

About IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology company with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key business partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable companies to take full advantage of the on demand era. Please visit www.ibm.com on the World Wide Web.

About the OSGi Alliance
The OSGi Alliance and its members specify, create, advance, and promote an open service delivery and management platform and foster its wide industry adoption. The OSGi Alliance serves as the focal point for a collaborative ecosystem of service provider, technology, industrial, consumer and automotive electronics communities. As an independent non-profit corporation, the OSGi Alliance also provides for the fair and uniform creation and distribution of relevant intellectual property - including specifications, reference implementations, and test suites - to all its members. The OSGi Service Platform is an extensible integration platform used to remotely and dynamically deploy, provision, maintain, and manage applications and services to devices in networked environments, such as homes, vehicles, mobile handhelds, and industrial settings.

Membership is open to any interested party, including Internet service providers, network operators, original equipment manufacturers, independent software vendors, end users, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. The consortium's Web site address is www.osgi.org.

About Global Inventures, Inc. (event producer)
Global Inventures creates and operates collaborative communities in the technology market. Our experts work with community founders and members to incubate, structure, and operate these collaborative communities so that they can successfully create ecosystems, drive technology innovation, and educate buyers. Since its inception Global Inventures has launched 20 collaborative communities, managed the creation of more than 20 collaborative industry specifications, created and managed seven compliance/certification programs, and helped develop markets with more than $10 Billion in addressable value. The firm uniquely blends people, processes, and technology to help collaborative communities move from blueprints to market acceptance.

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