BearingPoint Paves the 'Road to Fusion'

MCLEAN, Va., Oct. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BearingPoint, Inc. (NYSE: BE) , one of the world's largest management and technology consulting firms, combined its long-standing partnership with Oracle and its expertise in Service-Oriented Architecture to create the Oracle Advanced Technology Group, a premier global services team within the company's Oracle practice, focused on helping clients maximize the benefits of Oracle Fusion through careful planning for the impact of Oracle Fusion technologies on their existing IT and business applications landscape.

"By strategically aligning the capabilities of former industry competitors, Oracle has strengthened its product offerings, accelerated innovation and positioned itself to meet customer demands more quickly and cost-effectively," said Bob Hershey, senior vice president and managing director, BearingPoint Technology Solutions. "Recognizing the opportunity to provide greater business value to customers, BearingPoint took the lead in consolidating its Oracle, Peoplesoft and Siebel practices to create cross- competency teams to leverage deep industry expertise and further align itself with Oracle's next generation solution set."

Oracle Fusion is Oracle's blueprint for SOA-based Enterprise Solutions and can be used for integrating SOA-based applications and processes. By building the technology on open industry standards, enterprise systems can evolve easily and address the specific needs of businesses as they change. Organizations using any of Oracle's recent application product lines (including Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.10, Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise 8.9 and Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 8.11) will find Oracle Fusion functionality and support already built into their existing systems.

"Organizations are interested in exploiting the potential of SOA, but they are concerned about preserving their investment in Oracle solutions and other technology systems," said Rauline Ochs, group vice president of North America Channels at Oracle. "BearingPoint's 'Road to Fusion' methodology and the Advanced Technology Group utilizes the company's deep Oracle knowledge and innovative development capabilities to deliver the expertise and guidance organizations need to evolve toward an SOA infrastructure while leveraging their existing investments, as well as aligning with key initiatives and business strategies."

A specialized team that focuses on the new advanced technology supported by the next-generation Oracle Fusion product, BearingPoint ATG delivers high- quality solutions to customers. The solutions integrate Oracle Fusion capabilities, including Oracle's SOA platform, into existing client infrastructures, consistent with Oracle's product direction and the availability of Oracle Fusion products. Projects already undertaken through this effort include:

  * Road to Fusion Assessments and Planning - BearingPoint and Oracle have
    collaborated in the development of customized assessments to assist
    clients with their IT infrastructure and application strategies. Several
    clients are in the initial stages of these assessments, reviewing their
    current environments and providing a road map to the future.

  * Identity Management Solution - Many organizations are challenged by
    having to manage discrete identity management solutions that provide the
    three A's: authorization - giving people access to perform certain tasks
    depending on their user profiles; authentication - making sure all the
    parties involved are who they claim to be; and administration - the
    ability to operate, update and manage the entire system effectively and
    efficiently. The BearingPoint Identity Management solution offers a
    framework based on Oracle Identity Management that can be implemented as
    part of an ERP solution and extended to other applications within the
    enterprise.

  * End-to-End Technology Solutions - From architecture to implementation,
    BearingPoint's Oracle ATG provides a solution to address the complex
    requirements of a technology strategies, implementation or migration.
    BearingPoint has teamed with key alliance vendors to offer a
    standardized framework that includes developing the technology
    architecture based on functional business requirements, configuring and
    purchasing the technology, setting up the infrastructure, and tuning the
    implemented solution.

  * Industry Customizations - BearingPoint's Public Services Oracle
    Solutions practice has created the Federal Reference Model (FRM)
    solution, based on leading Oracle applications, for the U.S. Federal
    government. It provides standardized business processes and governance
    controls across federal financial systems. The solution, jointly built
    by BearingPoint and Compusearch, supports proof-of-concept sessions and
    training and serves as an accelerator for production implementations.
    The FRM solution, which uses industry-standard business processes and an
    SOA approach to systems integration, has the capability to interoperate
    with a variety of legacy systems and emerging technologies, supporting
    streamlined business processes and data flows across operational
    systems, without the expense of additional hardware or customizations.

Oracle's numerous acquisitions have laid the foundation for the company to create next-generation service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications. Today, SOA is emerging as the new standard for development of business solutions, replacing previous approaches to application development and systems integration.

In Forrester Research's report released Sept. 18, 2006, BearingPoint's current Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) offering had received the highest score among companies surveyed in "The Forrester Wave(TM): North American SOA Integration, Q3 2006, Forrester Research, Inc., September 2006."

"BearingPoint's dedicated SOA team brings cross-industry competencies to leverage SOA technology to solve real business problems," said Hemant Ramachandra, managing director of BearingPoint's SOA solutions group. "We look beyond the technology solution to deliver true business benefits, such as utilizing customers' existing assets to contain costs, conducting regular assessments to gauge our results and working with valued partners, such as Oracle, to execute that strategy and deliver customized, industry leading SOA solutions."

According to a recent report issued by Forrester Research, "BearingPoint's strong showing in this evaluation is because its clients agree with most of its vision around SOA: agility, cost containment, time-to-market, and strategic focus. Few client references we interviewed were as well aligned to their provider's vision as BearingPoint's. The success of SOA will ultimately be determined by its business value, and BearingPoint is well positioned for this business focus."

Among the evaluated companies, BearingPoint had the highest current offering score, according to the report, although other companies "are making the largest investments in this space, they are still focusing on the technology during project delivery, foregoing their firm-wide focus for SOA strategy: business, services, and process."

By contrast, the report said BearingPoint possessed a "clear, articulated business focus vision" and "overall, BearingPoint clients had the most positive client feedback of any consulting firm in this evaluation."

About BearingPoint, Inc.

BearingPoint, Inc. (NYSE: BE) is one of the world's largest providers of management and technology consulting services to Global 2000 companies and government organizations in 60 countries worldwide. Based in McLean, Va., the firm has over 17,000 employees and major practice areas focusing on the Public Services, Financial Services and Commercial Services markets. For nearly 100 years, BearingPoint professionals have built a reputation for knowing what it takes to help clients achieve their goals, and working closely with them to get the job done. For more information, visit the Company's website at http://www.bearingpoint.com/.

Some of the statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on our current expectations, estimates and projections. Words such as "will," "expects," "believes" and similar expressions are used to identify these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this press release include, without limitation, statements about claimed defaults with respect to the Company's Series A and Series B Debentures and potential consequences. These statements are only predictions and as such are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Forward-looking statements are based upon assumptions as to future events or our future financial performance that may not prove to be accurate. Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed or forecast in these forward-looking statements. As a result, these statements speak only as of the date they were made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Trademarks

Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Siebel are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and /or its affiliates.