DataDirect Technologies Announces Top 10 XQuery and XML Predictions for 2005

XQuery Pioneer and XML Industry Leader DataDirect Technologies Gives a Sneak Preview of What’s to Come for These Ground-Breaking Technologies

BEDFORD, MA -- 01/04/2005 -- DataDirect Technologies, the leading provider of components for connecting software to data, today announced its top 10 XML and XQuery predictions for 2005. The coming year will bring many new developments to XQuery, the highly anticipated language for querying and creating XML documents, that will ultimately lead to a complete overhaul in the way software applications are built.

"The momentum has been growing, and the database community is anxiously awaiting 2005 because it is destined to be the year for XQuery" said Jerry King, general manager for XML products at DataDirect Technologies. "The promise XQuery brings to dramatically simplifying and accelerating data integration and querying XML is unprecedented. The emerging standard will revolutionize data exchange and the way applications are developed, deployed and utilized"

Following are DataDirect Technologies’ predictions and observations on XML trends for 2005:

-- XQuery -- The Real Deal: With software giants riding the XML wave and XQuery moving steadily towards approval as an official standard by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), XQuery will begin to fundamentally change the way enterprise software applications are built.

-- Moving Beyond SQL: SQL pre-dates many cornerstones of conventional software development, making entire classes of new applications difficult to implement using current technologies. XQuery is a natural fit for XML content management applications, XML reporting, native XML programming, data integration and Web message processing. The transition to XQuery-based applications will be eased by the availability of powerful developer tools.

-- Access Relational Databases as XML: XQuery can use XML views to query relational databases the same way that it queries XML because one query can process both types of data. This will greatly ease developers’ jobs because they will not have to write and maintain mountains of code, resulting in faster application development.

-- Access Non-Relational Data as XML: There is a tremendous wealth of information stored in non-relational data formats (EDI, CSV, binary data, etc.), but so many different types of formats make it difficult or impossible to reuse valuable information. Fortunately, most data formats can easily be translated to XML and processed like other XML data, which will make XQuery increasingly popular for data integration.

-- Access Distributed Data Sources: We live in a networked world and XQuery was designed to leverage this by providing built-in facilities for loading and querying data sources anywhere on the Internet. XQuery will enable developers to join, integrate, share and manipulate data on the Internet as though it was on the local file system.

-- Standards-Based Programmatic Data Access: The XQuery API for Java™ (XQJ), the XML equivalent to JDBC or ADO, is a powerful new Java specification for processing query results in a JDBC-like fashion. Look for data access component vendors to provide embeddable components, which will fully support dards-based XQuery data access through XQJ for all major databases, including Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Sybase and MySQL, as early as mid 2005.

-- Don’t Forget XSLT: All the technical benefits of XQuery also apply to XSLT, the language for transforming XML documents into other XML documents, since they are closely related. For the same reasons why XQuery tools will be in demand, there will be a need for sophisticated XSLT editors, debuggers, mappers and performance profilers in 2005.

-- XML Schema Returns: XQuery’s ascendancy in 2005 will make developers brush up on XML Schema in a hurry. Just as one wouldn’t learn SQL without learning the SQL Data Definition Language (DDL), XQuery’s integrated support for XML Schema makes it a must-learn technology and XML Schema tools will greatly reduce the learning curve.

-- Larger XML Documents: The trend in recent years has been for bigger documents, more data and more complex problems, which is not expected to change. XQuery will open up entirely new classes of applications in XML content management and systems integration, and developers are apt to find their applications having to manage increasingly large XML documents in the very near future. Highly optimized XQuery data processing components in conjunction with XQuery performance profiling tools will be the key to dealing with the trend of increasing XML document sizes.

-- New XML Data Services: An XML Data Service is an emerging design pattern involving the use of XQuery to provide unified views of distributed, heterogeneous data sources via a Web service interface. As XML Data Services are deployed, "XML pipelines" can be developed, connecting different data services in a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). In 2005, developers will begin to leverage XQuery and XQJ to build XML Data Services that perform increasingly complex data integration tasks.

About DataDirect XQuery™
DataDirect XQuery™ is an easily embeddable XQuery implementation for XML applications that need to be able to process both XML and relational sources. It runs in any Java environment, on any operating system, using any major database, with or without application servers or other servers. DataDirect XQuery lets your developers work with standards, the W3C XQuery query language and XQuery API for Java (XQJ), instead of learning proprietary query language extensions and APIs. DataDirect XQuery enables XQuery everywhere -- making it possible, practical and easy to use XQuery in any environment. DataDirect plans to make the DataDirect XQuery product available for beta testing Spring 2005. For more information on DataDirect XQuery contact Nancy Vodicka at +1-919-461-4326 or visit http://www.datadirect.com/products/xquery.

About DataDirect Technologies

DataDirect Technologies is focused on standards-based data connectivity, enabling software developers to quickly develop and deploy business applications across all major databases and platforms. DataDirect Technologies offers the most comprehensive, proven line of data connectivity components available anywhere. Developers worldwide at more than 250 leading independent software vendors and thousands of corporate IT departments rely on DataDirect® products to connect their applications to an unparalleled range of data sources and using standards-based interfaces such as ODBC, JDBC, and ADO.NET. DataDirect Technologies is an operating company of Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), a US$300+ million global software industry leader. Headquartered in Bedford, Mass., DataDirect Technologies can be reached on the Web at http://www.datadirect.com or by phone at +1-800-876-3101.

DataDirect and DataDirect XQuery are trademarks or registered trademarks of DataDirect Technologies Corp. in the U.S. Java and all Java-based marks are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Any other trademarks or service marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Safe Harbor Statement

Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements contained in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, including but not limited to the following: the receipt and shipment of new orders, the timely release of enhancements to the company’s products, the growth rates of certain market segments, the positioning of the company’s products in those market segments, variations in the demand for customer service and technical support, pricing pressures and the competitive environment in the software industry, business and consumer use of the Internet, and the company’s ability to penetrate international markets and manage its international operations. The company undertakes no obligation to update information contained in this release. For further information regarding risks and uncertainties associated with the company’s business, please refer to the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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