Ultimus Delivers BPM Industry's First Collaborative Process Modeling and Development Environment
Ultimus BPM Suite 6.0 provides a platform to enable enterprises to automate every business process, with tools for BPM teams and integrated support for .NET and Web Services
CARY, North Carolina-September 29, 2003-Ultimus, the leading provider of complete business process management (BPM) and workflow automation solutions, today announced the general availability of its flagship product, the Ultimus BPM Suite 6.0. This latest release builds on Ultimus’ rich human-centric workflow and expands on the BPM capabilities that established Ultimus as a leader in the BPM market. The Ultimus BPM Suite 6.0 makes it easier than ever for enterprises to model, automate, manage, and optimize every business process. A major part of this release is the new Ultimus BPM Studio, which offers the industry’s first and only collaborative environment that provides both the fine-grained access controls to designate who has access to model, create, modify, and publish processes or process components. It includes a depth of features that satisfy the needs of process designers, business managers and developersanyone involved in designing and managing a business process.
The Ultimus BPM Suite 6.0 delivers consistently high ROI through a collaborative, programming-free process modeling & development environment, flexible integration and workflow capabilities, powerful management tools, and easy-to-use Web interfaces for process participants. To automate any process, organizations must link business managerswho know the processwith process analysts and IT personnel, who assist with the automation effort. Organizations must also link with end users inside and outside the company, who will use the solution. Unlike traditional BPM offerings that cater primarily to technical professionals, the Ultimus product is designed to address the needs of every member of corporate BPM teams that are being formed to manage enterprise process improvement projects with tools that are appropriate to their roles and skill sets.
“Ultimus has helped more than 1,000 organizations in 61 countries around the world increase their efficiency and profitability through improved business processes,” said Rashid Khan, CEO and co-founder of Ultimus, Inc. “The Ultimus BPM Suite 6.0 expands the completeness and deep functionality customers have grown to expect from our product. New enhancements like BPM Studio and support for .NET and Windows 2003 Server provide users with an easy to use end-to-end BPM platform to automate more and more processes. As our customers continue to automate more processes, the high ROI that they have already achieved will continue to grow.”
The key features for this 6th generation Ultimus release were driven by customers’ feedback and market demand for a cost-effective BPM platform. Bernstein AG, a world-leading supplier of industrial safety technology, wanted to improve its management of customer change orders, so the company turned to the Ultimus BPM Suite, enabling them to accelerate their responsiveness to customers. “We have found the Ultimus product to be very easy to use while having all the power and flexibility we need to address all of our needs. At the same time, when we heard Ultimus was working on 6.0, we developed a wish list of possible enhancements. We quickly saw that Ultimus already incorporated everything on that list and more,” said Bob McIntosh, IT manager, Bernstein AG. “Ultimus listens to its customers and cares about their continued success with the product.”
As organizations renew their focus on improving their efficiency and effectiveness through improved business processes the demand for BPM continues to grow. The Butler Group forecast the BPM market growing to $4 billion by 2005. “Ultimus has built a strong BPM solution, the origins of which are based on its mature workflow product set. Release 6.0 adds a wide range of new tools, but most importantly, provides the solution with integrated Web servicesa key differentiator between serious BPM vendors and those playing at being a part of the popular BPM technology paradigm,” said Andy Kellett, senior research analyst at the Butler Group. “The Ultimus BPM Suite can be leveraged to deliver process-centric solutions to business users that accurately reflect their business process requirements and do not need ongoing support from the IT department.”
Key Features and Benefits of Ultimus BPM Suite 6.0
The Ultimus BPM Suite 6.0 ensures every employee involved in a processfrom the person designing the process to people who will complete specific process stepshas the tools they need to do their job. New 6.0 features that have been incorporated to improve collaboration include:
BPM StudioA collaborative design environment and repository that simplifies process modelling and development, BPM Studio enables users to share and reuse process designs, assign individuals the rights to modify specific processes or process parts, and make dynamic process changes. With BPM Studio, processes can be developed faster and changes can be easily managed to ensure security and process integrity.
Expanded Developer SupportExtends the design environment of BPM studio so developers can leverage the best third-party tools to enhance their processes. All code is conveniently managed in the BPM Studio repository.
Integrated Web ServicesEnables users to automatically deploy workflow processes as Web services. As a result, a process can call a Web service based on an event condition or form event streamlining the interoperability of applications and increasing process automation.
Choice of Forms & User InterfaceUsers can incorporate a variety of forms into their BPM deployments including Ultimus ActiveX forms, Adobe Acrobat PDF forms, Microsoft InfoPath forms, Ultimus thin forms or custom forms that support XML.
Advanced AdministrationUltimus’ advanced administration capabilities enable organizations to proactively monitor process execution; reroute, reassign or complete tasks; or perform other adjustments to keep work moving forward. &&.NET & Windows 2003 ServerContinuing its nine-year partnership with Microsoft, the Ultimus BPM Suite 6.0 is one of the first BPM suites to fully support .NET, Windows 2003 Server and Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004. As users shift their needs from message-based routing to Internet-based workflow and BPM, Ultimus 6.0 supports the standards and platforms that enable it to be deployed across an entire organization. A Microsoft Certified Gold Partner and member of Microsoft’s Partner Advisory Board, Ultimus has many more BPM implementations than any other Microsoft-centric BPM vendor.
Pricing and Availability
The Ultimus BPM Suite 6.0 is currently available for purchase directly from Ultimus, or through its network of qualified resellers worldwide. More information regarding purchase can be found at the Ultimus Web site, http://www.ultimus.com.
About Ultimus A pioneer in Business Process Management and workflow automation, Ultimus is a profitable, global software company that enables enterprises worldwide to increase their profits by modeling, automating, managing, and optimizing every business process. Ultimus has business operations and sales offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and South America. Through these offices and a network of more than 85 partners in 60 countries, more than 1000 customers, including Carnival Cruise Lines, Citizens Bank, McKessonHBOC, Microsoft, Rubbermaid, Sony, and Siemens, have deployed the Ultimus BPM Suite to address their business process management challenges. Ultimus and its partners use the Ultimus Workflow Development Methodology to standardize implementations, accelerate deployments, and enable continuous improvement.
Headquartered in Cary, NC, the company is a two-time recipient of the Technology Fast 500 Award from Deloitte & Touche and is listed among the Inc. 500. Additional information about Ultimus can be obtained by visiting the Ultimus Web site at http://www.ultimus.com, emailing [email protected], or by calling 919-678-0900.
Ultimus is a trademark of Ultimus Inc. All other brands and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners and are used here for reference only