News and Events  

Santeon Announces its Continued Commitment to Microsoft Silverlight by Ensuring Silverlight RTL Compatibility with Silverlight 3

Alexandria, VA – July 10, 2009

[Santeon, Inc.] a leading provider of rich Internet and media applications and platforms today announced its continued commitment to Microsoft Silverlight by ensuring Silverlight right-to-left (RTL) compatibility with Silverlight 3. Silverlight 3 provides a sophisticated platform for building rich, engaging and interactive user experiences, with exciting new features and capabilities like out of browser support, hardware acceleration, and H.264 video support. Santeon developed the first Silverlight 2 Arab language library adding bi-directional text support to Silverlight, then merged with the Silverlight RTL open source project, and published under the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL) on CodePlex at http://silverlightrtl.codeplex.com, ensuring full compatibility with Silverlight 3.

“We have embraced Silverlight since its inception and realize the value it brings to users seeking the rich and powerful experiences they are used to having in desktop applications for their Internet-based systems. Santeon will continue to invest in research and development efforts to further the success of rich internet applications by being at the forefront of innovation in media and enterprise applications,” said Mouneer Rabie, director of development for Santeon. “We are also very proud that one of our senior architects, Yasser Makram, has been the top technical contributor to the Silverlight technical form since its inception.” You can visit the forum at: http://silverlight.net/forums.

“Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) provides a platform for building applications offering incredibly rich user experiences that integrate media, animation, documents and 3D. Microsoft ASP.NET provides a platform for building cross-browser, cross-platform data driven web applications,” said Yasser Makram, senior software architect for Santeon. “As part of Santeon’s commitment to the developer community, we are releasing this set of components to enable Arab developers to develop rich Internet applications with Silverlight for Arab users.“

“It’s clear Santeon is committed to enabling the development of rich Internet applications with Silverlight 3 for developers worldwide,” said Brian Goldfarb, director of the Developer Platform Group at Microsoft Corp. “Santeon’s development of the Arab language Silverlight library will help deliver a new class of cutting-edge and engaging applications on the Web.”

Santeon Announces its Commitment to Rich Media Application by Developing Arabic Support for Silverlight 2

Alexandria, VA - March 27, 2008

Santeon, Inc. a leading provider of Rich Internet and media applications and platforms today announced its support and commitment to rich media application development by offering Arabic support for Silverlight 2. The components will be available for download for free to users who wish to develop Arabic or multi-language business enterprise and media applications. Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web and Santeon is considered one of the leading expert organizations in the architecture, design and development of Silverlight based applications.

Mr. Mouneer Rabie, Santeon director of development, states, “We have embraced Silverlight since its inception and realize the value it brings to users seeking the rich and powerful experience they are used to having in desktop application for their Internet based systems”. “Santeon will continue to invest research and development efforts to further the success of internet application by being at the forefront of innovation in media as well as Enterprise Application”, commented Mr. Rabie. “We are also very proud that one of our Sr. Architects Mr. Yasser Makram has been the top technical contributor to the Silverlight technical form since its inception. You can visit the forum at http://silverlight.net/forums” continues Mr. Rabie.

“We are very excited to have Santeon contribute to the Arabic support for Silverlight 2 and we believe that this will encourage more local as well as regional adoption of Silverlight 2” commented Mr. Sherif El Touny, ISV Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Egypt

Silverlight 2 Arabic support is currently in Beta testing and will be available to developers to download early Q2-2008. The components will be available for free, however, organizations seeking to use the components royalty free will have to adhere with the standard licensing terms and conditions. “We will make the process very easy and seamless and readily available to anyone who wishes to use it free of charge, while we continue to protect our intellectual property” comments Dr. Ash Rofail, President of Santeon.

“Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) provides a platform for building applications offering incredibly rich user experience that integrates Media, Animation, Documents, and 3D. ASP.NET provides a platform for building cross-browser, cross-platform data driven web applications. However, there was a gap in the .NET technology continuum, Silverlight came to fill this gap and provide a rich user experience cross-browse, and cross-platform. Unfortunately Silverlight 2 did not include built in support for Arabic text. As part of Santeon’s commitment to the developers community, we are releasing this set of components in order to enable Arab developers to develop rich applications for Arab users.“ commented Mr. Yasser Makram, Santeon Sr. Software Architect.

Santeon named among top insurance Industry Business Process Outsourcing Vendors

McLean, VA - February 28, 2008

In an independent survey of 2775 qualified respondents, Research and Markets, the world largest market research resource, recently published the results of the Brown-Wilson Group ranking of 140 comprehensive BPO services suppliers. This study covered over 700 contractual relationships, revealing seven functional segments of Top Insurance Industry Business Process Outsourcing as part of the Black Book annual survey.

Brown and Wilson, who focus on the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) practice and provide one of the world’s most comprehensive reports, estimates the insurance industry outsourcing to reach $4B in 2008 representing a 70% increase from the previous year. The goal of reducing margins and increasing competition in recent years has forced many companies to outsource in order to stay competitive and become more efficient.

For Santeon it is an honor to be ranked 8th in the category of Trust and among the top 20 in Overall Performance. “This is not an easy market or industry. The list of vendors represents the ‘who’s who’ of the world’s largest and most established organizations. It is a great honor for Santeon to be listed, and it is a significant achievement to pull ahead of many traditional names.” --Ash Rofail, President of Santeon. “We are honored by the placement and are committed to our customers and partners. The insurance industry, specifically in healthcare, represents one of our main lines of business and we will continue to innovate to bring costs down for our customers while increasing efficiency and giving them a much higher ROI year after year.”

For more information about the survey and the detailed report please visit Research and Markets at http://www.researchandmarkets.com or Link to the article here

Santeon delivers Automated Benefits Enrollment to Sage Abra HRMS Customers

Alexandria, Virginia – November 1, 2007

Santeon, Inc. a leading provider of business process management technology and business process outsourcing services today announced an agreement with Sage Software to deliver electronic benefits enrollment to current and new Sage Abra HRMS customers. The service, being distributed and marketed by Sage Software as Sage Abra Benefits Messenger, automates the communication of employee benefits enrollment data with insurance and benefits carriers, thereby eliminating the need to submit paper enrollment forms or manually file carrier forms online, and helping to eliminate costly errors associated with duplicate data entry and missed enrollments. The service especially saves time and effort for companies working with multiple carriers.

The agreement allows Sage Software to license the Santeon Direct Enroll service and distribute it as an add-on to the Sage Abra HRMS suite of products, as well as process Sage Abra HRMS customers’ employee benefit enrollment information through the Santeon HR Benefits Clearinghouse.

“The addition of Sage Abra Benefits Messenger helps strengthen Sage Software’s leadership position in bringing innovative products, solutions and services to their growing customer base at the right time,” said Jessica Simmons, VP and General Manager for Sage Abra HRMS at Sage Software. “With annual benefits enrollment quickly approaching, it is absolutely the best time to address benefits management and streamline the enrollment activities by fully automating the open enrollment process, as well as the ongoing benefits management and administration through Sage Abra HRMS and Sage Abra Benefits Messenger.”

Sage Abra Benefits Messenger supports virtually all benefits carriers, and securely transmits employee benefits over the Internet through the Santeon clearinghouse.

Ash Rofail, President of Santeon, states, “We are very pleased to have partnered with Sage Software on this technology and service. Our business process outsourcing infrastructure and automated business process management technology enables us to support the Sage Software customer base and offer innovative approaches to support the company’s forward-thinking direction to bring valuable solutions to their present and future customers through Sage Abra Benefits Messenger.”

Xerox and Santéon, Inc. to Partner: Collaboration Equals Efficiency in Cutting-Edge Technology

McLean, VA - June 30, 2005

Xerox Egypt is introducing a series of new, sensible products for document lifecycle in various business areas. In collaboration with Santéon, Inc., Xerox will build the products using Santéon's XIP Collaborative Workflow Platform to provide customers with a robust and extensible solution for delivering additional value and services without added overhead.

Consequently, companies do not have to discard legacy systems to purchase an entirely new IT set up. This is costly, time-consuming, and requires retraining of personnel. A separate server is linked to the customer's current network to complement, or "overlay" the current system. Newly installed systems will also use these tiers to streamline the process. Archiving and saving data will no longer delay operation time.

This partnership is complementary to Xerox's innovating direction for advanced document lifecycle systems. The outcome of this partnership between Xerox hardware and Santéon's process management software will be the ability for customers to add enriching products to printing systems. This, in turn, will add explicit value and benefits to the processes that link document creation and usage. XPAonline is Santéon's and Xerox first product and offers two editions: Professional and Standard.

Existing Xerox customers will directly benefit from the opportunity presented in this collaborative project. In addition, new clients who previously were not served by current technology may now have the ability to integrate and upgrade systems they thought were unmovable. All customers who realize and take advantage of this partnership and explosion of technology between Xerox and Santéon will increase expediency. A major hurdle surmounted with the new product line is the time-consuming task of reprinting customers'historical data and the inability to archive typical documents that are produced from the printers.

Xerox and Santéon are confident that organizations caring about their customers'satisfaction will be eager to employ this product. Customers will better service their own clients while keeping at the head of the innovation with the utmost efficiency.

Moreover, this product tool will add value to the new prospected printing systems introduced to the market. The "what's new" in Xerox's latest generation of printing tools is the addition of services Santéon will bring to the products. This is a true collaborative effort between hardware, software, and process to bring ease and increased profitability to users.

Santéon Executive joins Software Economics Counsil (SECO)

McLean, VA - June 10, 2005

Dr. Ash Rofail, Santéon, Inc. founder and author of various IT books and articles, has been invited and accepted to join the Software Economic Council (SECO) chartered under the Business Performance Management organization. Together with large, international software engineering firms and innovators, Dr. Rofail participates in research, dialog, consensus, and trend analysis for information technology uses in all aspects companies around the world. Guided by the leadership committee and with sponsorship from industry providers and stakeholders, the Software Economics Council keeps a hand on the pulse of technology.

The Software Economics Council (SECO) is an independent organization that serves as a forum for constituents to learn from and contribute to better enterprise software economics, development and performance. The BPM Forum, whose membership includes senior level executives in finance, planning, IT and operations in a cross section of industries, formed SECO with the intent of executing the following:

• Identify and categorize challenges, concerns, characteristics, consistencies and commonalities in the software development lifecycle
• Formulate and articulate opinions, research and recommendations around the availability, quality, and criticality of using, managing, maintaining and supporting software across the organization
• Develop and disseminate white papers, opinion pieces, media alerts, etc. based on the outcomes of SECO membership interactions and provide commentary as circumstances and events warrant
• Host or participate in online events to present SECO findings
• Host or participate in industry and media roundtables-in locations such as Boston, New York and Silicon Valley-to enable direct discussions on local and current trends, topics, developments, and threats with appropriate media exposure

Members of SECO will meet and communicate virtually and in-person on a regular basis to discuss software industry issues such as: development gaps between software design and delivery; how to best manage quality throughout software lifecycles; building on the potential of open-source technology; and new strategies that enable organizations to elevate the value of software with today's licensed, open-source, and on-demand models.

Membership includes executives from Adobe Systems, Aztec Software, Azul Systems, BEA Systems, Borland Software, BroadVision, Cognizant, Deloitte, Dendrite International, EDS, IBM, Informatica, Leverage Software, Mercury, Novell, Oracle, Salesforce.com, SAP, Siebel Systems, and Sybase.

Dr. Rofail invited to speak at the 3rd Conference on Banking

McLean, VA - May 15, 2005

Santéon founder, Dr. Ash Rofail, was recently invited to speak in a Pan-Arab forum held in June 2005 in Downtown Cairo. Santéon's participation in this event by providing a key-note speaker solidifies Santéon's reputation for innovation and technology leadership. The economic summit for banking, finance and insurance in the Arab world objectives were to highlight its reform necessities and challenges. Dr. Rofail's incite provided useful and paramount information for theses industries, and reflected the very objectives and services Santéon has innovated for the region over the last half-decade. For the Arab World to compete on a global level and best service its own constituency, technology will hold the key. Santéon, led by Dr. Rofail, will be at the forefront of innovation. Egypt's International Economic Forum has targeted Santéon as a key go-to resource for answers and solutions facing its industries today.

Other key speakers at this event included Dr. Youssef Boutros Ghali, Minister of Finance, Arab Republic of Egypt; Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, Minister of Investment, Arab Republic of Egypt; H.E. Dr. Bassem Awadalla, Minister of Finance, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; and Teymour Kooros, Vice President, Africa & Middle East, Global Government Banking, Wachovia Bank, USA.

Dr. Ash Rofail, founder of Santéon, Inc., together with

• Hussein Al Kholy, Chairman, National Telecom Company, Egypt
• Aly Moselhy, Chairman, National Post Organization, Egypt
• Moderator: Mohamed Magued, Chairman & Managing Director, Egyptian Banks Co. for Technological Advancement, Egypt

Enlightened and provided a roadmap of avenues for the Middle East to secure its foothold in banking, finance and insurance. Held in Downtown Cairo, the heart of innovation in the Arab world, this forum breathed new life into an ancient industry.

Santéon President Dr. Rofail Speaks at Xerox Conference Launching Partnership in BPM

Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt - February, 2005

February 2005- Cairo, Egypt- Xerox Corporation announced a partnership with Santéon, Inc. to provide Business Process Management software and services using Santéon's XIP Business Process Management platform, serving customers in the financial, government, pharmaceutical, insurance, and manufacturing sectors for Xerox customers in the Middle East and Africa. The announcement was made at Xerox Egypt's "Performance Accelerated" regional conference held in February in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

Santéon's President, Dr. Ash Rofail, was a keynote speaker at the conference describing the financial, operational and strategic benefits of process management. The Santéon BPM software supports Xerox's global strategic initiative called Free Flow to improve organizations' workflow processes. Xerox chose Santéon because Santéon BPM software provides unparalleled capabilities for Xerox customers to integrate people, processes, data, internal and external systems with ability to optimize process performance and improve operational profitability and customer service. The conference was attended by over 100 different multinational companies, representative of a dozen countries, in multiple industries.

Business Integration Journal Impression of Santéon BPM Software

McLean, VA - February, 2005

Business Integration Journal, a publication on technology integration solutions, recently wrote an impression on Santéon's BPM product, XIP. Author S.M. Hoole describes the functionality of XIP as well as its notable features among competitors, including XIP's unique environment to quickly and effectively implement and manage process workflow and integration. "Santéon XIP BPM provides a "one-and-all," fully inclusive environment that promotes real collaboration between business analysts and technical teams to design business process integration between multiple systems and people." - S.M. Hoole.

The article outlines how XIP allows customers to achieve compliance, integration and collaboration from a single product and describes Santéon's ability to help customers optimize business processes before and during implementation. "XIP allows changes to business rules to occur "on-the-fly" without stopping the process flow or requiring IT intervention." - S.M. Hoole.

Axiom Systems and Santéon Partner in BPM for Managed Healthcare

McLean, VA -January 10, 2005

xiom Systems and Santéon, Inc. partner to bring process efficiency to managed healthcare organizations. Axiom boasts expertise and success in the healthcare industry with leading solutions for HIPAA, integration, and a variety of solutions for managing healthcare administrative data. Axiom Systems adds Santéon's XIP Business Process Management (BPM) platform to the suite of its own products to offer additional capabilities to its customers.

Santéon's XIP BPM gives Axiom the ability to quickly implement, update and maintain solutions, as well as offer its customers solutions that adapt rapidly to business rules changes in the dynamic healthcare industry. Axiom also chose Santéon BPM because the product is a fully integrated life-cycle solution from modeling processes, to process automation and integration, to business activity monitoring. Santéon's suite includes a comprehensive library of pre-built functionality and features, giving Axiom's customers a quicker-to-market solution.

Santéon XIP BPM suite provides the capability for Axiom customers to integrate people, processes, data, internal and external systems with unparalleled ability to optimize process performance by using components for:

• Process modeling
• Simulation
• Integration, workflow and automation
• Dynamic business rules management
• Business activity monitoring and reporting

Additionally, the BPM platform offers an Embedded Development Environment (EDV) giving Axiom developers and architects total flexibility to customize the solution for each of its unique customers. Axiom and Santéon look forward to a teaming relationship that solves managed healthcare challenges of compliance, transactions, adjudication, and other complex systems integration challenges facing an industry under tremendous scrutiny to reduce costs and increase services.

Xerox Partners with Santéon to Offer Customers BPM

McLean, VA - December 10, 2004

Xerox Global Services chooses Santéon XIP Business Process Management (BPM) platform to offer innovation in process efficiency to its financial, government, pharmaceutical, insurance, and manufacturing customers in Africa and the Middle East. In choosing Santéon, Xerox now offers best-in-breed BPM solutions in line with the quality of service Xerox is known internationally to provide.

Santéon XIP BPM suite provides the capability for Xerox customers to integrate people, processes, data, internal and external systems with unparalleled ability to optimize process performance by using components for:

• Process modeling
• Simulation
• Integration, workflow and automation
• Dynamic business rules management
• Business activity monitoring and reporting

After reviewing many products, Xerox chose Santéon for its ability to rapidly tailor solutions to the variety of Xerox customers in an easy-to-use tool. Xerox worked with existing customers and Santéon to prototype solutions for credit card pre-authorization processes. The processes demonstrated value for improved accuracy of processing, standard processing, faster processing, fraud reduction, increased customer satisfaction and revenue.

In February, Xerox and Santéon will host a conference for regional Xerox customers and partners, continuing in its tradition of bringing innovation and smart processes to help businesses.