ILOG Launches New Business Rule Studio for Eclipse

Product Expected To Advance Business Rule Technology Adoption By More Mainstream Java Developers

2004-06-16 - Gentilly, France: ILOG(r) (NASDAQ: ILOG; Euronext: ILO, ISIN: FR0004042364) has today introduced Business Rule Studio(tm) Developer Edition (BR Studio). Built entirely on the widely-adopted Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and based on ILOG JRules(tm), a key offering in ILOG's Business Rule Management System (BRMS) product line, BR Studio will - for the first time - provide Java software developers with the opportunity to develop business rule technology using the Eclipse IDE, thereby bringing the power of BRMS to mainstream software development organisations using Eclipse technology.

ILOG, the first business rule technology vendor to support Eclipse, announced its membership in the Eclipse Vendor Consortium earlier this year. BR Studio is being made available as a free download that streamlines the evaluation process for Java/Eclipse developers.

ILOG's view is that that business rule technology, especially a BRMS, allows software developers to reduce software maintenance costs associated with embedded legacy code, ease transitions to service-oriented architectures (SOA) and empower their business users to easily implement new business policies and keep them current - all at lower cost. Yet developers typically must acquire specific knowledge and training in business rule methodologies and tools to integrate and leverage business rule technology into their applications. Because BR Studio is based on Eclipse, it reduces the learning curve and development time associated with implementing business rule technologies.

"As business rule management systems are becoming increasingly important to enterprise Java applications, the availability of ILOG BR Studio will give Java developers using Eclipse a significant new productivity tool for leveraging these systems to create more flexible enterprise architectures," said Mike Milinkovich, executive director, Eclipse Consortium.

"Business rule technology has been an important tool for streamlining our order processing system at Swisscom. The ability to create and edit rules in the Eclipse environment, the most widely-supported Java IDE, should go a long way towards streamlining our development efforts as we roll out more rule-based applications, said Dominique Gueniat, software engineer, Swisscom IT Services AG, "This Eclipse plug-in is exactly what we were waiting for."

ILOG BR Studio enables business rule authoring, testing and debugging - including all the features needed for developers to evaluate business rule technology for Java/J2EE applications. Key features include:

* Rule Project, a new project type in Eclipse that allows developers to manage business rules just like Java code.

* A business rule editor with content assist contextual help and real-time error checking for easy rule authoring.

* An embedded rule engine for rapid prototyping and rule execution

* Integrated tools that allow debugging across Java source code and business rules, simplifying the testing and quality assurance process for rule-based applications.

ILOG Business Rule Studio is available immediately via web download and requires Eclipse 2.1 or WebSphere Application Developer 5.1. More information on ILOG's Business Rule Studio and product download facilities are available at http://brstudio.ilog.com/. ILOG say that deployment of business rule applications requires separate deployment licenses of the full version of ILOG JRules, which are sold separately.

For the second year in a row, ILOG has been named to the leader quadrant of Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Business Rule Engines. Compliance solutions powered by ILOG JRules monitor high volumes of data in real time, enabling the immediate detection and reporting of faulty or fraudulent information. According to ILOG, for business process management, JRules enables the effective management of the complex, dynamic rules that can number in the thousands for a discrete business process, maximising business agility. Customers of the award-winning ILOG JRules include eBay, CitiStreet, Zurich, MetLife, Sabre and many other leading Global 2000 companies and governments worldwide.