Linthicum Group Acquired by ZapThink!

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ZapThink Welcomes Linthicum Group Customers & Audience!

We now serve over 600 Customers and an Audience of over 100,000

ZapThink Acquires Linthicum: The Announcement

BALTIMORE, MD - September 5, 2007 -- ZapThink, LLC, the industry's foremost advisory firm focused on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) today announces the acquisition of The Linthicum Group, LLC, a well-respected SOA consulting firm, and the addition of David S. Linthicum to ZapThink. ZapThink will expand its intellectual property and team with expertise and resources from the acquisition to provide ZapThink customers with expert SOA advisory, research, and guidance. The announcement was made during Linthicum's keynote address to the e-Gov Institute's 7th Enterprise Architecture Conference & Exhibition in Washington, DC.

"Dave brings significant market visibility, thought leadership, a deep understanding of enterprise architecture, and proven approaches and methodologies for SOA adoption," says Ronald Schmelzer, Managing Partner at ZapThink. "We see the addition of David and the Linthicum Group team as strategic to the ZapThink offerings, providing us with the ability to better service our expanding combined client base."

In addition to the Linthicum Group's well-respected and renowned work in the SOA and enterprise integration marketplaces, David Linthicum is a highly visible thought leader who is responsible for writing for and managing a number of significant blogs and publications, as well as speaking at hundreds of industry events over the course of his career.

"Both of our firms are internationally known to provide expert SOA advisory, education, mentoring, and research," says David Linthicum. "This combination will instantly become the most influential SOA consulting organization in the world, with access to the best-known and respected SOA thought leaders and practitioners."

ZapThink Acquires Linthicum: Expanded Offerings

As part of the acquisition, ZapThink will expand its product and service offerings to include:

• Master-Level SOA Advisory, including all steps to understanding, defining, designing, implementing, testing, and managing world-class enterprise SOA implementations.
• Expansion of the ZapThink's SOA education and credentialing offering, the Licensed ZapThink Architect (LZA) program worldwide.
• Strategic SOA Mentorship, working with new or existing SOA planning and development teams to insure success.
• SOA Product Strategy Guidance, providing practical insight to capture the rapidly expanding SOA marketplace, and craft SOA offerings that will fit that market.
• SOA Consulting Firm Support and Best Practices, assisting thought-leading consulting organizations with their SOA services offerings, including development of intellectual capital, processes, methods, and service delivery procedures.

Questions! I have Questions!

1+1=3? I think the math is off...Why the Acquisition?

The market for SOA is growing. The demand for SOA knowledge, advice, insight, and help is at an all-time high. To this hot market, both ZapThink and Linthicum Group bring their own unique talents and resources. Over the past few years, the Linthicum Group, LLC, has focused on SOA mentoring, largely to end user organizations, including many blue chip Global 2000 customers. The Linthicum Group has made all of these organizations successful with their SOA efforts, work that brings well defined financial return to the organizations through better agility ad reuse.

ZapThink has focused on world class advisory and training services around SOA, and have been thought leaders in the SOA space for years. Combining ZapThink's brand, depth, and advisory power with Linthicum Group's insight, experience, and visibility is like peanut butter and chocolate. Both individual flavors mesh the best of both the advisory and mentoring capabilities of each organization, brings added value to existing clients, and allows the newly expanded ZapThink to expand into new markets with more resources and talent within the firm. Zapthink will provide one-stop-shopping for those looking to understand, define, refine, and implement their SOA.

Linthicum Groups assets and brand will be completely absorbed within the ZapThink brand and all Linthicum Group market-facing activities, customer engagements, articles, blogs, and podcasts will be done under the ZapThink brand as of September 5, 2007. The sum of ZapThink and Linthicum Group together as one entity are greater than each apart... so one and one really is more than just two!

When did this occur?

In case you missed it above, the definitive agreement was signed on September 5th, 2007. As of that date, all Linthicum Group activities, assets, and customer relationships have been folded into ZapThink.

What's happening to David Linthicum?

David will join Jason and Ron as a Managing Partner of the firm, and will continue to work directly with clients and oversee project operations. Jason and Ron's titles are changing to Managing Partners from Senior Analysts. As if they were just analysts anyways!

What's happening to Linthicum Group offerings?

All offerings, current customer engagements, speaking, blogging, podcasting, and gossiping will transfer to the Zapthink portfolio and be done under the ZapThink brand.

What's happening to ZapThink offerings?

ZapThink's offerings will not only stay, but grow in both depth and scale. Continue to seek advisory, education, mentorship, research, marketing, and visibility offerings from ZapThink. ZapThink also plans new product and service offerings in the near future that will expand upon SOA-focused mentorship and direct engagement with end-users and consulting clients.

What's happening to Dave Linthicum's Podcasts, Blogs, Speaking, and other Market-facing activities?

What blogs? Just kidding. David will continue to blog and Podcast, and is looking forward to using ZapThink's brand as a no-nonsense, tough-love advisory firm to provide even more thought provoking content. Moreover, David will continue to speak and keynote at the most important and virtually all major SOA and enterprise architecture conferences. All of his blogs, Podcasts, and speaking engagement will be listed on ZapThink.com, and will be done under the ZapThink by-line.

I'm a Linthicum Group customer -- what's going to happen to me?

Keep on being a good customer! Your account will be transferred to Zapthink, and will enjoy the same world class SOA advisory and consulting services from the same people. All existing agreements will be honored and commitments met. Any invoices due will be now paid to ZapThink, LLC and any future engagements, proposals, invoices, and payments will be to and/or from ZapThink, LLC and not Linthicum Group. Please see our contact information at http://www.zapthink.com/contact.html or contact Ron Schmelzer (info@zapthink.com) if you have questions about your ongoing business relationship.

I'm a ZapThink customer -- what's going to happen to me?

Your life has just gotten better! Not only will you enjoy the same world class SOA advisory and consulting services as you have come to expect from ZapThink, but now you have the added resources of the Linthicum Group available to you. As a ZapAdvisory customer, not only will you enjoy unlimited advisory from the ol' ZapThink analysts, but now you get unlimited advisory time (via phone or email) with David Linthicum as well! If you have engaged ZapThink for advisory, consider David Linthicum to now be available to you. If you have contracted white papers, webinars, podcasts, speaking, or other engagements from ZapThink, now Dave is an available resource. And if you want our help, we now have greater depth, experience, and capability to do so!

What's the new, official ZapThink song?

According to David: "Take the Power Back!" - Rage Against the Machine

According to Ron: "Come Together" - Beatles

According to Jason: Still considering it.

What's your choice? Let us know! Email us at info@zapthink.com.

About Linthicum Group

The Linthicum Group (www.linthicumgroup.com) provides world class SOA consulting to major corporations and government agencies, as well as select SOA product companies. CEO David Linthicum is the former CEO of BRIDGEWERX, and has held key technology management roles with a number of organizations including CTO of Mercator Software, CTO of SAGA Software, Mobil Oil, EDS, AT&T, and Ernst and Young. In addition, he was an associate professor of computer science for eight years, and continues to lecture at major technical colleges and universities. David keynotes at many leading technology conferences. Linthicum hosts InfoWorld's SOA Report Podcast and writes InfoWorld's Real World SOA Blog and columns in SOA World and Business Integration Journal. David authored best-selling Enterprise Application Integration (Addison-Wesley, 1999), Next-Generation Application Integration: From Simple Information to Web Services (Addison-Wesley, 2003), and the forthcoming 12 Steps to SOA (Addison-Wesley, 2007).