NEON Systems Moves Further into Enterprise Application Integration
M. Reed - January 26, 2000

Event Summary

'SUGAR LAND, TX -- NEON Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: NESY), a leading provider of Enterprise Access and Integration software products, today announced it has signed an agreement for the development and worldwide distribution rights to Sterling Software, Inc.'s (NYSE: SSW) SOLVE:Diplomat product. Terms of the agreement included a $3.5 million payment by NEON Systems. NEON Systems has the option to acquire full ownership of the intellectual property rights associated with the product for an additional payment. Historically, Diplomat was utilized to integrate disparate Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Call Center systems. NEON Systems intends to increase the scope of the Diplomat product, which will evolve it into a single, unified EAI product line encompassing major computing platforms and applications. This key expansion of the NEON Systems product family will provide a comprehensive EAI solution. In addition to the distribution rights, NEON has been granted a source code license and has hired the Cary, North Carolina-based software development lab dedicated to the Diplomat product...