SUN Microsystems and Brixlogic Team to Help Insurance Firms Adopt New Web Messaging Standart

Potential Industry-wide Savings Estimated at More Than $1 Billion

HostReview.com
Monday, May 24, 2004; 12:00 AM

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA -- MAY 24, 2004 -- Sun Microsystems, a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services, and Brixlogic, a provider of industry-standard Web Services solutions for the financial services industry, today announced that the two companies are partnering to deliver the first integrated solution for the ACORD messaging standard.

ACORD is a global, nonprofit insurance association whose mission is to facilitate the development and use of standards for the insurance industry. ACORD has developed a robust XML framework that enables insurance companies, reinsurers, agents/brokers and other distributors to exchange business data (including unstructured documents such as spreadsheets) among each other in the same standard format. Using these standards, insurance providers and service institutions around the world are bringing their IT operations one step closer to the realities of straight-through processing. According to Brixlogic, this may harness an industry-wide cost reduction for insurers estimated at more than $1 billion.

"The alliance with Sun will enable us to leverage both Sun's competitive advantage in the hardware and software technology. It also proves that Brixlogic has a unique competitive edge in the implementation of ACORD standards in the insurance industry," said Xavier Wartelle, president and CEO, Brixlogic.

"Sun's mission is to solve complex networking computing problems. This partnership re-inforces our participation and support of ACORD's efforts while positioning Sun as the logical infrastructure solutions provider for the financial services community," said Paul Dolbec, insurance industry manager, Sun Microsystems.

According to work undertaken by the London Market Principles program office it is believed that Brokers Lloyd's, and company carriers could achieve annual savings of approximately $80 million in the London Market by the implementation of the Accounting and Settlement Reforms. The main tenet of these reforms is the introduction and use of ACORD standards.

As a result, in a typical deployment, customers may achieve a payback in less than six months. Additionally, a fully deployed Brixlogic solution can help drive down the overall claims settlement process from 240 days to 40 days (source: London MarkePrincipals), and could generate between 2% and 4% of additional claim recoveries or US$420-840 million industry-wide per year (source: Donald Light, Celent Insurance Group).

Recently, Brixlogic has been selected by ACORD as the first provider of ACORD Messaging Service (SOAP Framework) Certification Software. Brixlogic has developed a complete suite of products that enable insurance providers, reinsurers and brokers to assemble, test, manage and maintain ACORD-based straight-through processing solutions. Brixlogic applications run on Sun hardware.

About Brixlogic

Brixlogic provides straight-through processing solutions based on interoperable financial messaging standards. Brixlogic enables real-time, uniform process and control for accounting and settlement data between insurers, brokers, intermediaries, clients and third parties. Using Brixlogic technology, insurers and their brokers have dramatically speeded up the agreement and payment of premiums and claims, reduced their processing cost, ensuring higher customer satisfaction while getting a clearer assessment of risks. As a result, they have achieved payback in less than 6 months.

Brixlogic, Inc., a private company founded in 2002, has its headquarters in San Mateo, California as well as a development office in Paris, France. More information can be found at www.brixlogic.com.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.