Leading Insurance Firm Uses BluePhoenix to Remediate Field Limitations

    Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2005, ORLANDO, Florida, October 20
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BluePhoenix Solutions (NASDAQ: BPHX), the leader in
Enterprise IT Modernization, announced today during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo
2005 that it has successfully completed the custom installation of its
automated application portfolio management software solution, IT Discovery,
for American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus (Aflac). With revenues
of more than $13 billion, Aflac is among the best-known insurance providers
in the U.S. and the number one underwriter of individual policies in Japan.
    Aflac will use the IT Discovery tool to gather critical IT production
information and to give IT staff a central repository of production
information that every IT manager can easily access. The new repository,
which is updated daily, will provide extensive details on IT assets and will
also show how each change will impact the entire IT environment.
    "IT Discovery has already proven to be valuable," said Dr. Rob McCurley,
second vice president, VP Software Research Center, at Aflac. "We undertook a
major remediation project last year. Based on outside consultants' initial
calculations, we planned and budgeted for a manual transformation effort that
would take over a year. By using IT Discovery to scan the entire system, the
consultants were able to quickly identify and isolate the exact applications
that needed work. It turned out to be only a fraction of those initially
identified, and the team had the transformation job done in a matter of
weeks. This was a huge savings in time and work."
    The remediation project also involved the use of BluePhoenix(TM)
FieldEnabler to revise and expand the affected fields. The FieldEnabler
software tool is a unique solution developed for modernizing complex,
large-scale systems by modifying data field length,
    data type, or the data structure itself. This tool is empowered to
address systems written in most popular programming languages by using
various databases and file structures. It rectifies the affected data points
anywhere in the application and throughout the computer environment.
    According to BluePhoenix product manager David Amoils, IT Discovery is a
foundation tool for many BluePhoenix projects. "Virtually every modernization
project we do begins with a comprehensive global assessment, and there is
simply no better software tool for that than IT Discovery. An IT manager
might know how many terabytes of data reside in the database, but has no idea
of the number of records or tables or indices, or how they interact with each
other. IT Discovery provides a detailed overview of every component within
the enterprise IT environment. With that kind of information and
understanding, the client's IT staff can make the right decisions about how
to proceed with any production changes without risk of anything getting
tripped up."
    IT Discovery software provides comprehensive visibility into the
complexity of existing IT environments and enables organizations to turn raw
IT data into strategic information. This allows IT managers to streamline and
optimize daily operations and reduce the risk in making IT-related decisions.
Through this process, IT Discovery helps lower the cost of maintaining IT
systems and improve planning for IT initiatives. BluePhoenix provides
enterprise modernization services using IT Discovery along with a portfolio
of other automated tools and also licenses the software for ongoing use by
client companies in all fields of business, particularly banking, insurance,
and financial services.
    About BluePhoenix Solutions
    BluePhoenix Solutions leads the IT Modernization market by developing
unique solutions that enable companies to automate the process of modernizing
and upgrading their mainframe and distributed IT infrastructure, thus quickly
and cost-effectively extending the ROI of their existing IT systems. The
company's comprehensive suite of tools and services, (including technology
for Understanding, Migration, Remediation and Redevelopment), reduces the
cost of renovation and speeds up the renewal process. BluePhoenix has 12
offices throughout the world, including locations in the US, UK, Denmark,
Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Australia and Israel. The company's major
shareholder is Formula Systems (NASDAQ: FORTY), an international Information
Technology company principally engaged in providing software products,
solutions, and services in various vertical markets. For more information,
please visit http://www.bphx.com.
    About Aflac
    For 50 years, Aflac products have given policyholders the opportunity to
direct cash where it is needed most when a life-interrupting medical event
causes financial challenges. Aflac is the number one provider of
guaranteed-renewable insurance in the United States and the number one
insurance company in terms of individual insurance policies in force in
Japan. Aflac's insurance products provide protection to more than 40 million
people worldwide. In January 2005, Aflac was included in Fortune magazine's
list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in America for the seventh
consecutive year. In August 2005, Aflac was included in Fortune magazine's
list of the Top 50 Employers for Minorities. Aflac has also been included in
both Forbes magazine's Platinum 400 List of America's Best Big Companies and
in Fortune magazine's listing of America's Most Admired Companies for five
consecutive years. Aflac Incorporated is a Fortune 500 company listed on the
New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AFL. To find out more about Aflac,
visit http://www.aflac.com
    SAFE HARBOR: Certain statements contained in this release may be deemed
forward-looking statements, with respect to plans, projections, or future
performance of the Company, the occurrence of which involves certain risks
and uncertainties that could cause actual plans to differ materially from
these statements. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited
to: market demand for the Company's tools, successful implementation of the
Company's tools, competitive factors, the ability to manage the Company's
growth, the ability to recruit and retrain additional software personnel, and
the ability to develop new business lines. This press release is also
available at http://www.bphx.com. All names and trademarks are their owners'
property.

    Company Contact:

    Tsipora Cohen; VP, Worldwide Marketing,
    BluePhoenix Solutions; +1-(781)-652-8945 tcohen@bphx.com

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