SUNNYVALE, California and PARIS, February 19 /PRNewswire/ --

- New ILOG JRules 6.7 Adds New Platforms, Customization Options

ILOG(R) (Nasdaq: ILOG; Euronext: ILO, ISIN: FR0004042364) today announced ILOG Rules for COBOL(R), a new add-on module for ILOG JRules(R), a key offering in ILOG's business rule management system (BRMS) product line, that helps organizations with significant IBM mainframe investments simplify their legacy modernization efforts -- including moves to service-oriented architectures (SOA). ILOG Rules for COBOL enables organizations to leverage a BRMS to unlock business policies buried in COBOL to cost-effectively implement policy change management and quickly respond to regulatory or market pressures. ILOG also today unveiled ILOG JRules 6.7 with several platform upgrades and improved customization features for end-user and ISV customers.

Many Fortune 500 companies -- including insurance, banking, government and telecommunications -- have mission-critical applications deployed on mainframe computers. In many cases, these applications are written in COBOL which requires specialized and increasingly scarce programming skills to maintain. As a result, business policies written in COBOL on the mainframe cannot be easily reviewed or changed, slowing business response times.

The Rules for COBOL add-on module, which is available for use with ILOG JRules and licensed separately, enables IBM mainframe customers to author and manage rules written against native COBOL data structures, and to deploy these rules more easily. Companies with a large mainframe investment that wish to move to a modern SOA environment can particularly benefit from using the COBOL add-on module: using Rules for COBOL, business policies are expressed as business rules that can be tested and deployed both in the mainframe data environment and as standalone decision services in an SOA environment. This means that business rules can create a bridge that ensures business policy continuity from legacy systems to SOA.

"The new ILOG Rules for COBOL opens up the possibility for us to enhance our business agility through a BRMS while leveraging our existing mainframe investments," said Ramon Lasurt, Head of Development Allianz Seguros, Barcelona, Spain. "Using Rules for COBOL in concert with ILOG JRules, we expect to increase transparency and auditability in our operations as well. With ILOG Rules for COBOL we are now prepared to make ILOG's BRMS part of our standard map and methodology for applications development."

Key technical features of ILOG Rules for COBOL include:

-- A COBOL copybook import facility for quickly developing the business object model to begin authoring business rules for the COBOL application. -- Full support of business rule authoring within JRules including the use of decision tables and rule flows. The support of COBOL functions and actions required for rule authoring enables the customers to access additional COBOL functionality they need from business rules. -- Ability to generate native COBOL code as a sub-program by a simple menu item from ILOG JRules Rule Studio or Rule Team Server so customers do not have to introduce new technology or new coding techniques within their existing mainframe COBOL programs. -- Compatibility with IBM WebSphere Developer for zSeries.

New ILOG JRules 6.7 Adds Platforms, Customization

With ILOG JRules 6.7, ILOG furthers customization options for end-user and ISV customers, including new user interface components that permit customers to embed rule management and authoring functionality into their own Web applications. This means that end-user customers can tailor the user experience to their own organizations and processes and ISV customers can build their own Web application (using the Web components for editors and tree explorer) to control the behavior of the existing interface and integrate it more closely with their other components.

JRules 6.7 also introduces new application program interfaces (APIs) for customizing the user experience of Rule Team Server, allowing for the removal of standard features and the addition of customized functionality per user role. Also new is support for the Java 6, Eclipse 3.3, Tomcat 6.0 platforms and new application server releases from BEA (WebLogic 10.0) and Sun Java Enterprise System 8.2 - JRules 6.7 continues support for application servers IBM WebSphere 6.1 and JBoss 4.0. Various database driver and version support updates are also included.

Both the ILOG Rules for COBOL add-on module and ILOG JRules 6.7 are now available. Please visit http://www.ilog.com/products/jrules for more information.

ILOG has consistently built on its history of product innovation to make it one of the industry's leading providers of BRMS. Forrester Research has recognized ILOG as a business rule platform market leader, including the leader in business rule platforms for Java. Customers of ILOG's award-winning BRMS products include eBay, Equifax, Grupo Santander, Harrah's Entertainment, Visa, Vodafone, Zurich, and many other leading Global 2000 companies and governments worldwide. ILOG's business rule management system (BRMS) product line includes ILOG JRules, ILOG Rules for .NET(R) and ILOG Rules (C++)(R).

About ILOG

ILOG delivers software and services that empower customers to make better decisions faster and manage change and complexity. Over 3,000 corporations and more than 465 leading software vendors rely on ILOG's market-leading business rule management systems (BRMS), supply chain planning and scheduling applications as well as its optimization and visualization software components, to achieve dramatic returns on investment, create market-defining products and services, and sharpen their competitive edge. ILOG was founded in 1987 and employs more than 860 people worldwide. For more information, please visit http://www.ilog.com.

ILOG, ILOG JRules and ILOG Rules for COBOL are registered trademarks of ILOG S.A. and ILOG, Inc. All other company and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.

Web site: http://www.ilog.com

Monika Raj of ILOG, +1-408-991-7128, mraj@ilog.com