Contacts:
Stephanie Covert
Object Management Group
+1-843-737 0637
pr@omg.org 

Toshiyuki Ikari
UML Technology Institute
+81-3-5206 5952
t-ikari@umlcert.org 

OMG and the UML Technology Institute Announce Agreement to Develop Certification 
Program for Business Process Modeling and Management Professionals
Program will measure expertise in BPM Standards and Industry Best Practices

Needham, MA, USA and Tokyo, Japan - March 27, 2007 - The Object Management Group™ (OMG™) and the UML Technology Institute (UTI) today announced that they have agreed to develop a new certification program focused on the business analysts, architects and software designers using Business Process Management (BPM) standards in their organization. The new exam series will be called the "OMG Certified Expert in BPM" (OCEB) program.

As part of the agreement, OMG will develop, and UTI and OMG will offer, a new certification exam series to support business analysts, architects and designers building and using Business Process Modeling and Business Process Management techniques to define, improve and automate business processes. OMG will use subject matter experts to develop and validate the exams. The exams will we available worldwide in English and Japanese.

"BPM standards help business analysts, architects and software designers to recognize, precisely capture, catalog, store, reuse and make more efficient an organization's business processes, so BPM expertise is more important today than ever," said Richard Mark Soley, Ph.D., chairman and CEO of OMG. "The OCEB Certification Program to be developed jointly by UTI and OMG will fill a vital need for measuring the BPM knowledge set and skills that have become increasingly crucial in today's business environment."

"UTI is proud to be working at the leading edge of the critically important development of BPM standards and methodologies, and to be at the vanguard of promoting BPM both in Japan and worldwide. The agreement to create the OCEB certification program with OMG marks a major new advance in the growth of this exciting field. We will revolutionize the IT industry in Japan with BPM," said Toshiyuki Ikari, President of UML Technology Institute Co., Ltd.

About the OCEB Exam Series
The OCEB examinations will begin with a Fundamental exam, to be taken by all candidates. There will then be two tracks for more advanced candidates - a Business Group and a Technical Group - with Intermediate and Advanced levels for each track, for a total of five exams. The Business Group models business process in order to analyze, benchmark, and improve their enterprise's business performance, an essential activity for achieving successful SOA. The Technical Group models business process with automation as the expressed goal. Both tracks will include OMG specifications, as well as non-OMG industry materials to ensure a comprehensive exam and certification process.

This certification program will be the third exam series the two companies have produced jointly. The first two certification programs, the "OMG Certified UML® Professional" (OCUP) and the "OMG Certified Real-time and Embedded Specialist" (OCRES) are currently available. For more information about the OCUP and OCRES exams, visit http://www.omg.org. 

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About the UML Technology Institute
The UML Technology Institute Co., LTD. was founded to promote the use of open, standards-based modeling technologies through the development of international certification programs that provide formal recognition of modeling expertise. With headquarters in Tokyo, UML Technology Institute was established in November 2002 by PA Co., Ltd. and Object Technology Institute, the OMG Representative in Japan. For more information, visit www.umlcert.org. 

About the Object Management Group
OMG is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry consortium. OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a wide range of technologies, including: Real-time, Embedded and Specialized Systems, Analysis & Design, Architecture-Driven Modernization and Middleware and an even wider range of industries, including: Business Modeling and Integration, C4I, Finance, Government, Healthcare, Legal Compliance, Life Sciences Research, Manufacturing Technology, Robotics, Software-Based Communications and Space.

OMG's modeling standards, including the Unified Modeling Language™ (UML®) and Model Driven Architecture® (MDA®), enable powerful visual design, execution and maintenance of software and other processes, including IT Systems Modeling and Business Process Management. OMG's middleware standards and profiles are based on the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA®) and support a wide variety of industries.

More information about OMG can be found at www.omg.org. OMG is headquartered in Needham, MA, USA.

Note to editors: MDA, Model Driven Architecture, OMG Logo, UML, UML logo and CORBA are registered trademarks, and OMG, Object Management Group, MOF, MDA Logos, BPMN, OCRES, OCUP, OCEB and Unified Modeling Language are trademarks of Object Management Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.