BluePhoenix Solutions Announces Partnership with IBM Japan; Releases AppBuilder 2.1 With Innovative Multilingual Development Capabilities

Tuesday July 15, 12:01 am ET

CARY, N.C., July 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Crystal Systems Solutions (Nasdaq:CRYS - news) today announced that it has formed a partnership with IBM Japan through its wholly owned subsidiary, BluePhoenix Solutions. The partnership was created in order to market BluePhoenix(TM) AppBuilder, the prominent development and management environment for enterprise-wide applications. IBM Japan's direct sales force will resell AppBuilder as a Vendor Licensed Product.

In conjunction, the company has announced the general availability of BluePhoenix AppBuilder 2.1. The new release adds the ability to develop multilingual applications, allowing developers to easily deploy applications to many different languages, critical for companies whose applications are being marketed and used worldwide.

"We decided to make BluePhoenix AppBuilder a Vendor Licensed Product after performing a thorough evaluation and finding that it will help our customers move to next generation technologies," said Haruo Fukumori at IBM Japan. "We found AppBuilder's well-structured and easy to use development environment very compelling, as well as the fact that it can be deployed across multiple platforms and architectures, from COBOL and C to Java and HTML."

"We believe the Japanese market holds great potential for our line of integrated Enterprise IT Modernization solutions," said Arik Kilman, CEO of Crystal Systems. "We see this partnership as an important building block for extending our reach in Japan far beyond AppBuilder and look forward to working closely with IBM Japan and their highly skilled workforce in order to introduce the Enterprise IT Modernization concept to this new market."

About IBM Japan
IBM Japan was founded in 1937 as a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM World Trade Corporation. Today, the company has over 21,000 employees and over 100 offices in Japan. IBM Japan has research and development facilities at Yamato, Yasu and Fujisawa, and manufacturing facilities at Yasu and Fujisawa, Japan. For further information, please visit the IBM Japan website www.ibm.com/jp/.

About Crystal Systems Solutions

Crystal Systems Solutions Ltd. (Nasdaq:CRYS - news) and its wholly owned subsidiary BluePhoenix Solutions develop and market cost effective Enterprise IT Modernization products and solutions that enable clients to extend the ROI of their existing systems through Understanding, Migration, Transformation and Development. The companies have offices throughout the world including the US, UK, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Israel and Cyprus. For more information, please visit our web site at www.crystal-sys.com or www.bluephoenixsolutions.com

Crystal Systems Solutions is a member of the Formula Group (Nasdaq:FORTY - news). The Formula Group is an international information technology company principally engaged, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, in providing software consulting services, developing proprietary software products, and providing computer-based solutions.

SAFE HARBOR: Certain statements contained in this release may be deemed forward-looking statements, with respect to plans, projections, or future performance of the Company, the occurrence of which involves certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual plans to differ materially from these statements. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to: uncertainties inherent in litigation, market demand for the Company's tools, successful implementation of the Company's tools, competitive factors, the ability to manage the Company's growth, the ability to recruit and retrain additional software personnel, and the ability to develop new business lines.

BluePhoenix is a trademark of BluePhoenix Solutions. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.