OSLO, NORWAY, 16 MAY 2001 - Ontopia AS, provider of advanced Topic Map technology and co-creators of the Topic Map standards, today announced that Starbase Corporation, of Santa Ana, California, has signed a definitive strategic agreement to license Ontopia's Topic Map technology. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Starbase Corporation, the leading provider of end-to-end collaboration products for both the development and management of content and code for e-business applications, will adopt Ontopia technology as part of their strategic corporate solution for a number of mission-critical initiatives.
Topic Mapping is a new paradigm for organizing, retrieving, and navigating information. Through the provision of a 'knowledge layer' that is independent of the information resources themselves, topic maps help capture and manage corporate memory, improve indexing, and enable the integration of information that spans multiple, disparate repositories. Topic Maps are an international standard, defined by the ISO, and can also be interchanged using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) defined by the W3C.
"Starbase carefully researched a variety of technologies and a number of different companies, and found that Ontopia's Topic Map technology was the fastest and most efficient way for us to reach our technology objectives," stated Alan Kucheck, Vice President of Engineering at Starbase. "Their engineering team is second to none, and their architecture is well-designed and highly scalable. We will leverage that technology to deliver our next-generation products to market faster than we otherwise would have been able to."
"The fact that Starbase, a leading American public Internet and software vendor, chose Ontopia is yet another validation of our Topic Map technology," stated Steve Pepper, Chief Executive Officer at Ontopia and co-editor of the XML Topic Map (XTM) specification. "Starbase's early adoption of this emerging technology will help pave the way for others. We have been extremely impressed by their vision and innovative thinking, and will be working closely with Starbase to ensure that their initiatives employing our technology are successful."
Starbase is the leading provider of end-to-end collaborative products for both the development and management of integrated content and code for eBusiness applications. Collaboration is the simultaneous coordination, management and communication of geographically dispersed contributors of both code and content for eBusiness applications.
With over 2,800 Starbase customers worldwide, our technology supports the continuous cycle of creating, linking and managing digital assets, which comprise complex eBusiness applications. Starbase products enable users with differing technical and functional backgrounds to collaborate on the production and management of Web sites and eBusiness initiatives from multiple locations.
Companies and organizations, including leading corporations such as Chase Bank, Dell Computer, Lucent Technologies, Motorola, PepsiCo and Seagate Technology have selected Starbase products to manage their eBusiness development projects. Starbase is headquartered at 4 Hutton Centre Drive, Suite 900, Santa Ana, CA 92707. Tel: 714.445.4400. Fax: 714.445.4404. Visit Starbase's Web site at www.starbase.com.
Ontopia, The Topic Map Company (TM), is the world's leading provider of generic topic map software. Its principals have been actively involved in developing and promoting the topic map paradigm for many years.
Ontopia's flagship product, the Ontopia Knowledge Suite (TM), currently comprises a full-featured topic map engine that supports both the ISO 13250 and XML Topic Map (XTM) specifications, and the Ontopia Topic Map Navigator, a framework for building web-based topic map delivery applications. Ontopia technology provides added value to web portals, content management systems, knowledge-based intranet applications, and enterprise application integration.
Ontopia has headquarters at Waldemar Thranes gt. 98, N-0175 Oslo, Norway. Tel: +47-23 23 30 80. Fax: +47-23 23 30 81. Visit Ontopia's Web site at www.ontopia.net.
Company Contact:
Steve Pepper, CEO
+47-23 23 30 80
pepper@ontopia.net
When used in the preceding discussion, the words "believes, expects, or intend to" and similar conditional expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and actual results could differ materially from those expressed in any of the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, (i) conditions in the general economy or the software industry, (ii) the timely development and market acceptance of products and technologies, and (iii) competitive factors.
Note to Editors: Ontopia and its product names are trademarks of Ontopia AS. All other product and company names herein are trademarks of their respective owners.