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Procession, Aerial House Asheridge Road Chesham Bucks HP5 2QB www.procession.com

14th February 2008

Procession and Microsoft reach agreement over Procession's Patent complaint

Following a face-to-face meeting, Microsoft has now acknowledged the legitimacy of the prior art claim of Procession plc, the developer of original and innovative People & Task Driven and Goal Directed software in its Task Orientated Applications (TOA).

Microsoft has undertaken to submit notification of Procession's prior art to the US Patent Office. Consequently, Procession regards its Patent complaint with Microsoft as resolved.

In the same week, Procession welcomed a Microsoft hint at a new programming language based on the business model to enable better collaboration between business and IT - a capability already built and deployed by Procession. According to Procession, Microsoft's new initiatives focusing on people in the workplace, bring greater credibility to the Procession breakthrough in business software.

Following a letter to Bill Gates from Procession's CEO, David Chassels, seeking an early discussion to resolve what - to Procession - was a serious issue (where certain Microsoft patent applications lodged in 2005 failed to acknowledge Procession's prior art) Chassels reported that a meeting in Chesham had resolved the issue as far as Procession was concerned.

"It always was a Microsoft problem and I am delighted it has accepted the legitimacy of our claims and has accepted responsibility to lodge the Procession prior art - and let the appropriate authorities pass judgement," Chassels commented. "I am much more interested in seeing Microsoft move towards the totality of our capability which we have pioneered in isolation for ten years."

Only last week, Mary Jo Foley's blog - which covers the products, people and strategies that make Microsoft tick - suggested that plans are advancing to build a new programming language, codenamed 'D', based upon a declarative process to build applications from the business model.

Chassels explained: "At last, we can see that the pieces of the jigsaw are coming together at Microsoft - in the adaptable user form, recognising people, roles, task type and data required, delivering the correct information to the right person at the right time.

"This reflects one of the patents which we disputed. In one of the other patents, Microsoft is focusing on putting all task attributes from a model into a database.

"There has already been an announcement that Microsoft sees the future as being able to build the application direct from the model. Now we have the revelation of this new declarative language, codenamed "D".

"These are the ingredients to take Microsoft to a new unified tool that business professionals or analysts can easily use to build any solution," Chassels added. "This is exactly what Procession has had for ten years - and it vindicates our approach.

"Procession's software was built to be global and end users deserve access to this quicker than we could possibly provide on our own. As such, I am currently seeking to open discussions with other global business software technology players.

"Business software is, currently, far too complex. We have found a way to simplify this significantly.

"Now, it looks like Microsoft is getting there too," said Chassels.

"I have seen the capability and power this approach brings. It will change the shape of building applications.

"We support Microsoft's move as described in their UK version of the 2007 white paper, 'The New World of Work - Evolution of the UK Workforce'. This will bring to the business desktop the same sort of simplicity and power as Microsoft has done for the individual.

"However, this time, the new capabilities have been pioneered by Procession not Microsoft!"

End

Notes for Editors:

Copies of Procession's White Paper, ‘Simplify IT, More For Less', are available on its web site www.procession.com or from david.chassels@procession.com

About Procession
Procession is a UK-based and owned company that has developed original and innovative software in Task Orientated Applications (TOA). This TOA approach represents a dynamic alternative to pre-built and/or custom hard-coded applications and represents a paradigm shift in Business Software Development. 

In effect, Procession has created a highly customisable ‘generic' application and has, in one single technology, moved beyond the beyond the concepts of BPM and SOA to a new enabling ‘platform' technology to build solutions in its Process Application Platform. 

Procession is a complete and comprehensive application platform. In a single technology, it combines data-centricity, BPM, workflow, rules, state, data manipulation, business intelligence and application platform. Procession has it own presentation layer and built-in message queue for external systems. The recent completion of an extension to Dreamweaver, linking to Procession's tag library in its presentation layer, now deskills and speeds up the build of working web forms as the user interface. 

In the words of market analysts the Butler Group, Procession's unique, user-friendly technology “removes the disconnect between requirement and implementation”. It also enables strategic processes to be built as working applications at 20 to 30 per cent of the cost of traditional methods. 

These systems can be added to or modified easily, giving unrivalled ‘agility'. They can also provide management information in real-time to support dynamic Performance Management with guaranteed compliance, as required. 

Procession's TOA uses an RDBMS (Oracle), along with Java and J2EE application servers and maintains a runtime repository of process data, process state and reference data. The Procession Process Engine uses declarative process definition. There is no code generation and no custom coding. This unique feature means that business analysts and operational managers who understand the vital operational processes can implement and modify those processes. In practice, Procession has cracked the code for the closed loop linking business and IT - a still sought-after goal by some of the world's largest software technology companies.

Further information from:

David Chassels, Procession: 01494 781 444 ; 07774 681773 (mobile)
Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR: 01727 860405