Alliance Strengthens Mainframe Migration Message with Membership

PORTLAND, Ore., July 23, 2007 – The Itanium® Solutions Alliance today announced its membership in the Mainframe Migration Alliance (MMA), a group of companies working together to help customers modernize their mission-critical applications from the mainframe onto the Microsoft® platform.

Microsoft, a Charter Member of the Itanium Solutions Alliance, is the key driving force behind the MMA. Members of the MMA find the Alliance provides value through visibility in the market and networking with peers. The marketplace also benefits from better solutions due to the advocacy of MMA and its members.

“The Itanium Solutions Alliance’s tagline “Delivering a new era in mission-critical computing,” reflects perfectly the theme of the MMA – offering mainframe customers solutions for modernizing their legacy systems by moving to Windows while preserving the traditional reliability and scalability they have come to depend on. We are really excited about the Itanium Solutions Alliance joining the MMA.” said Spyros Sakellariadis, director at Microsoft Corporation and sponsor of the MMA.

“The Itanium Solutions Alliance participation in the MMA provides a great opportunity for two like-minded organizations to provide a wealth of knowledge for IT departments facing modernization of their IBM-based mainframe systems,” said Robin Drummond, president of the Itanium Solutions Alliance.

Since its inception in 2005, the Itanium Solutions Alliance has educated IT decision makers and independent software vendors (ISVs) of the benefits of Itanium-based computing. Microsoft joined the Itanium Solutions Alliance as a Charter Member in 2005, and has collaborated on numerous projects through the years. Currently there are over 12,000 applications with 3,000 Windows applications and a number of Windows-based tools available on Itanium 2-based systems.

About The Itanium Solutions Alliance
The Itanium Solutions Alliance was formed by leading enterprise and technical computing solutions providers to work together toward a common objective of transitioning the world to open, industry-standard solutions based on Intel Itanium architecture. Together with leading enterprise software and hardware providers, the Alliance is dedicated to accelerating the adoption and ongoing development of Itanium-based solutions. Its membership comprises some of the most influential companies in the computing industry. For more information, visit www.itaniumsolutionsalliance.org.

About the Mainframe Migration Alliance
Formed in spring 2003, the Mainframe Migration Alliance is comprised of software vendors and service providers focused on enabling mainframe customers to meet the challenges posed by legacy application environments, including the pressures to reduce IT costs and increase the flexibility in IT systems. Additional information about the alliance can be found at: www.mainframemigration.org.
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