Lombardi Blueprint Generally Available 

for On-Demand BPM Process 

Collaboration and Planning

Hundreds of Companies Validate SaaS-based Lombardi Blueprint™ for Process Collaboration, Planning and Mapping, Connecting Strategy to Execution

Austin, Texas - April 30, 2007 – Lombardi® (www.lombardisoftware.com), the leader in business process management (BPM) software for Global 2000 companies, today announced the general availability of Lombardi Blueprint™, the first on-demand collaborative process planning tool that enables companies to map processes, identify problems and prioritize improvement opportunities. The innovative Web 2.0 application is delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS), allowing customers to begin immediately mapping their processes without having to download or install any software.

Market acceptance for Lombardi Blueprint has been very strong, with hundreds of companies participating in the initial public beta review. One manufacturer held a worldwide summit to identify and agree global common processes using Blueprint as the focal point. Another developed a process strategy in England and Germany for presentation to Japanese-based management in a matter of days. Additionally, the product has received numerous accolades from industry analysts, media, product reviewers and the blogging community.

“The Blueprint public beta was incredible,” said Phil Gilbert, EVP and CTO at Lombardi. “We opened it up to more than 250 companies around the world, and the feedback we received was almost unanimous – these companies could easily Blueprint their business, quickly driving agreement on the processes that mattered the most and helping prioritize their process improvement and SOA efforts. The ease of use and global reach of Blueprint exceeded our expectations.”

As part of today’s Blueprint announcement, Lombardi is hosting a one-hour webinar, entitled "Lombardi Launches Blueprint - Starting BPM the Right Way" on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at 1:00 p.m. CDT. This one-hour webinar is presented in conjunction with Blueprint users, and details how they utilize the product and the benefits they are receiving. For more information or to register, please visit: www.lombardisoftware.com/lombardi-blueprint-webinar.php.

“One of the key challenges for BPM is to get involvement and buy-in from non-IT audiences,” said Ian Charlesworth, senior analyst at Ovum. “Blueprint’s ease-of-use addresses this challenge head on.”

Lombardi Blueprint is an Internet browser-based, collaborative, process-planning tool that allows everyone to focus on the business, not the tool. Since there is no new modeling language to learn, documenting processes with Blueprint is easy and requires no training. Business process improvement teams can easily work together on processes, from anywhere in the world, and include additional participants at any time as needed, regardless of where they are located physically.

"With Blueprint, multiple people at multiple locations are able to work in a real-time environment to document, critique, and change how their business processes/activities work," said Stephen Hamilton, managing director at Gordian. "Our experience is that process reviews are far more productive, and clients can do them in a few hours or days, versus the traditional days and weeks."

Blueprint helps to identify key process problems and analyze their potential impact on the strategic goals of the business. Blueprint also helps teams assemble a prioritized list of improvement projects and present each project’s value proposition. Processes may be exported automatically to Microsoft PowerPoint – simplifying the communication of improvement projects goals, teams and scope to executive management.

“Being able to identify our pain points, and where they live in the process, is important,” said Rebecca Ludke, business technology consultant at Resolvit Resources. “Then with Blueprint we can very quickly produce a PowerPoint to show management our plan for improving the process.”

Lombardi Blueprint provides multiple views for representing processes. The process mapping view is targeted towards business users who need to describe activities and responsibilities and want to identify potential problems. Blueprint also supports detailed workflow modeling using the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) for more sophisticated business analysts or IT modelers. The documentation view provides wiki-like capabilities for documenting processes. Additionally, Blueprint automatically manages revision history and maintains rollback and audit trail capabilities for every process.

“For many, the problems of BPM time-to-capability and the lack of true collaborative capabilities around process discovery and discussion means that licenses often remain on the shelf,” said Clive Longbottom, service director, Business Process Analysis at the analyst firm Quocirca, Ltd. “A SaaS model, combined with the true ease-of-use and simplicity as seen in Blueprint provides an excellent means to gaining and uncovering real process value.”

Since process models are built on Lombardi’s unique Shared Model technology, they can be transferred back and forth between Blueprint and Lombardi TeamWorks®, the award-winning BPM suite for designing, controlling, and optimizing business processes. This “round-trip” process deployment provides the direct linkage from high-level strategy and goals all the way through to execution of specific activities. Based on the Object Management Group’s (www.omg.org) Business Process Definition Metamodel (BPDM) standards specification, exportable Blueprint models are fully portable and can be utilized with any BPDM-enabled process modeling tool or deployment environment.

“At Lombardi, our goal is to help make BPM easier and accessible to everyone in the business,” said Rod Favaron, Lombardi president and CEO. “The value of Blueprint is simple – it enables companies to quickly prioritize and drive agreement on the processes that matter the most to their business – and what to do about them – helping to close the gap between business strategy and execution.”

There are two different types of Blueprint Accounts available: a free Personal Account or a Team Account licensed in groups of 10 users. For more information or to sign up online, visit: www.lombardisoftware.com/blueprint-lombardi.php.

About Lombardi

Lombardi is a leader in business process management (BPM) software for Global 2000 companies as recognized by Forrester Research, in Human-Centric Business Process Management Suites, Q1 2006 research report. Lombardi offers award-winning BPM technology, know-how and services to help its customers become Process-Driven. Lombardi Blueprint is the only on-demand process improvement tool that enables companies to map processes, identify problems and prioritize improvement opportunities. Lombardi’s Teamworks® is built on open standards and provides ongoing visibility and control of business processes, increasing the speed and flexibility with which organisations can manage their business process activity and decision-making. Teamworks for Office™ makes it easy for anyone to participate in BPM using the familiar Microsoft® Office System products. The company is a Gold-Certified Microsoft partner, with an “Information Worker Productivity Solutions” Competency.

Lombardi is behind some of the largest, most successful BPM implementations in the world. Our customers include Allianz Life, Aflac, Dell, Hasbro, ING Direct, Maritz Travel, Reuters, Renault F1 Team, Sprint, T-Mobile, The UK Insolvency Service, Universal Music Group and the U.S. Government. For more information, visit www.lombardisoftware.com.