DataDirect Technologies: Latest Release of DataDirect Technologies' XML Converters Simplifies EDI Message Integration for European Gas Distributors

SLOUGH, United Kingdom, Jun 04, 2008 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- PRGS | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- DataDirect Technologies, (www.datadirect.com), the unparalleled leader in data connectivityand mainframe integrationand an operating company of Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), today announced release 3.2 of its DataDirect XML Converters product which features expanded EDI support to include the Edig@s standard communication protocol developed by European gas distributors. As a result, participating suppliers, shippers and gas transporters have a simpler and more productive tool to exchange vast amounts of dispatch and operational information without making drastic changes to their IT systems.

Edig@s is a 15-member organisation comprised of leading gas supply companies throughout Europe who sought to establish a standard way for sending and receiving operational data and messages between dispatching centres. In order to rationalise the number of message variants and create a more efficient and flexible way of exchanging business-critical information, the members developed a set of message protocols based on the EDIFACT international standard for administration, commerce and transport.

The DataDirect XML Converters (www.xmlconverters.com) product delivers bi-directional, highly-scalable software that efficiently streams EDI, flat files or other legacy data formats as XML, making data accessible to virtually any application. The high-performance Java and .NET components can convert legacy data formats into XML and back without a major re-architecting of the Edig@s members' applications.

Dr. Carlo Innocenti, senior XML program manager at DataDirect Technologies said: "The DataDirect XML Converters product insulates an application from the lower level, physical details of the EDI message. By working at this higher level, developers can achieve greater speed and efficiency in terms of integrating EDI messages into downstream systems. Further, our simplified support for Edig@s encourages more pervasive adoption of the standard by the gas supply industry, while streamlining interoperability and accelerating the efficiency benefits that result."

DataDirect Technologies sees many examples of organisations wishing to communicate information to newer distributed systems using message formats such as XML, only to find that EDI persists as a common standard for exchanging data among trading partners. The DataDirect XML Converters product provides a best of both worlds' solution which shields an organisation from making a choice between XML and EDI.

"In the Edig@s situation," Innocenti continues, "gas distributors now have a way to consume the EDI message and manipulate this message as XML, which is easily handled by the rest of the IT infrastructure. Conversely, data residing in different data sources (e.g., document formats or relational databases) can be pulled together and converted to an Edig@s message and sent to other parties involved."

To learn more about DataDirect XML Converters and the new features available in version 3.2, please visit http://www.xmlconverters.com/products/whatsnew.html)

About DataDirect Technologies

DataDirect Technologies is the software industry's only comprehensive provider of software for connecting the world's most critical business applications to data and services, running on any platform, using proven and emerging standards. Developers worldwide depend on DataDirect products to connect their applications to an unparalleled range of data sources using standards-based interfaces such as ODBC, JDBC and ADO.NET, XQuery and SOAP. More than 300 leading independent software vendors and thousands of enterprises rely on DataDirect Technologies to simplify and streamline data connectivity for distributed systems and to reduce the complexity of mainframe integration. DataDirect Technologies is an operating company of Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS).

CONTACT: Paul O'Sullivan, DataDirect Technologies Tel: +44 (0)1753 218930 WWW: http://www.datadirect.com Linda Trim Saffron Communications Limited Tel: +44 (0)1763 208708 Tel: +44 (0)7977 573003 Fax: +44 (0)1763 208813 Salli Roskilly, Saffron Communications Tel: +44 (0)1763 208708 e-mail: salli at saffroncoms.com WWW: http://www.saffroncoms.com

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