Chicopee, MA – Apatar, Inc, the leading provider of open source software tools for the data integration market, today announced the official launch of the Apatar Data Mashup Contest with an Apple 80GB Video iPod as the main prize. The challenge will take place during two major open source trade shows: the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON), Portland, OR on July 23-27, 2007 and the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco, CA on August 6-9, 2007.

The mashup phenomenon enabled users and developers around the globe to mix data easily, create gadgets/widgets, and join them in the form of situational applications. Apatar, Inc. invites developers to ride the wave and participate in the Apatar Data Mashup Contest with a chance to win exciting prizes sponsored by Apatar, Inc., the company providing support and services around the open source project, Apatar Data Integration. The winners of the Apatar Data Mashup Contest will have an opportunity to join the community of distinguished contributors to the Apatar Data Integration project, based on their mashup experience using Apatar open source software.

Awards
1. The Apatar Data Mashup Contest will reward the author of The Best Business DataMap with an Apple 80GB video iPod.
2. The author of the The Most Innovative DataMap Concept wins an Apple 2GB iPod nano.

How to Participate

The objective of participants is to develop and contribute a collection of feeds and data flows that will be assembled into the business data mashup.

1. Visit www.apatar.com and click “Download Now” to install the Apatar software client application.
2. Using Apatar software, mix two or more feeds/data sources and produce a new integration job, called DataMap, with the goal to reap business benefits for the user of the aggregated data.
3. Participants who have created eligible DataMap(s), need to register and publish submissions at Apatar’s On-Demand metadata repository, found at www.ApatarForge.org.

Rules and Requirements

1. All DataMaps should be submitted online to the open source metadata repository, found at http://www.apatarforge.org, in the category "Apatar Data Mashup Contest."
2. When multiple authors participate, credit will be associated with the registered DataMap developer.
3. There is no limitation to the number of DataMap submissions a contest participant can submit.
4. The deadline to enter submissions for the contest is 11:59 PM. EDT on Friday, August 31, 2007.
5. The two official winners of the contest will be announced at 3:00 PM. EDT on Wednesday, September 5, 2007.

Evaluation Criteria

All submissions will be evaluated on the basis of:

1. Business value and applicability
2. Concept innovation
3. DataMap creativity

Quotes:
"The problem each enterprise faces is how do customers, partners, vendors, and everyone else with an interest in an enterprise can securely exchange the company’s data and services within their own enterprise applications. The Apatar Data Mashup Contest will accelerate integration information between applications, databases, files, and systems in a more open, reusable, shareable way," said Apatar Founder and CEO Renat Khasanshyn. “Data Mashups are going to change the way for the information to be used inside and outside of the enterprise easily.”

"OSCON and LinuxWorld have been traditionally perceived as the most successful, content-rich conferences for open source developers and IT professionals," said Apatar VP of Business Development Ludmila Radzevich. “The Apatar Data Mashup Contest was created with the goal to showcase how emerging Enterprise 2.0 software tools can quickly and inexpensively link 'the cloud' and the existing on-demand and on-premises applications and databases across the enterprise.”

For more information and to register for OSCON, visit:
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/58/register

For more information and to register for LinuxWorld, visit
http://linuxworldexpo.com/dev/12/exhibitors

For details on How to Participate, Rules and Requirements, and Evaluation Criteria visit www.apatar.com or click here http://www.apatarforge.org/wiki/display/INT/2007/07/24/Apatar to Host Data Mashup Contest During OSCON, July 23-27, 2007, in Portland, OR and at LinuxWorld, in San Francisco, CA, August 6-9, 2007

Major Apatar Offerings 
Apatar Enterprise Data Mashups (www.apatar.com)  
Apatar Enterprise Data Mashups is the first open source on-demand data integration software tool set and services, which help users integrate information between databases, files, and applications. Imagine you could visually design (drag and drop) a workflow to exchange data and files between files (Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, CSV/TXT files), databases (such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL, Oracle), applications (Salesforce.com, SugarCRM), and the top Web 2.0 destinations (Flickr, RSS feeds, Amazon S3), all without having to write a single line of code. Users install a visual job designer application to create integration jobs called DataMaps, link data between the source(s) and the target(s), and schedule one-time or recurring data transformations. Imagine this capability fits cleanly and quickly into your projects. You've just imagined what Apatar can do for you.  

ApatarForge (www.apatarforge.org)  
ApatarForge is the first on-demand service, released under an open-source license, which allows anyone to build and publish an RSS/REST feed of information from their favorite Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, news feeds, databases, and applications. ApatarForge is the community effort where business users and open source developers publish, share, and re-use data integration jobs, called DataMaps, over the web. ApatarForge is the prime destination for Apatar users to collaborate and extend an Apatar Data Integration project. ApatarForge.org now hosts more than 120 DataMaps containing metadata. All DataMaps are available for free download at http://www.apatarforge.org.  

Benefits 
- Reduce integration cost 
- Improve data quality 
- Shorten implementation time 
- Reduce maintenance costs 
- Eliminate custom coding  
- Knowledge workers can subscribe to secured internal or external RSS feeds aggregated from ERP/CRM systems, databases, personal and shared files and XML feeds. 
- Synchronization across multiple interfaces (on-premises, on-demand, mobile)  
- The ability to personalize feeds for workgroup collaboration, opportunity tracking, business and competitive intelligence, and project management.  
- No coding! Visual job designer and mapping enable non-developers to design and perform transformations 
- Users have the ability to create, publish, share, and re-use data transformations and output to RSS feeds by monitoring keywords and URLs for both internal and external systems. 

General Features & Benefits 
Apatar brings its users a set of unmatched capabilities in an open source package: 
- Visual job designer and mapping enable non-developers to design and perform data transformations.  
- Aggregating and reading RSS content 
- Connectivity to Oracle, MS SQL, MySQL, Sybase, Microsoft Access, PostgreSQL, InstantDB, BorlandJDataStore, Csv, Qed, HSQL, Compiere ERP, SalesForce.Com, SugarCRM, Goldmine, Microsoft Excel, XML, RSS, ATOM, FTP, POP3, LDAP, WebDav, Autodesk Buzzsaw, any JDBC data sources, Amazon S3, Flickr. 
- Job Scheduler 
- Single interface to manage all your integration projects 
- Flexible deployment options 
- Bi-directional integration 
- Platform-independent, runs from Windows, Linux; 100% Java- based 
- Easy customization, source code included 

About Apatar:
Apatar is the leading provider of open source software tools for the data integration market. With powerful Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) capabilities, Apatar enables its users to easily link information between databases (such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL, Oracle), applications (Salesforce.com, SugarCRM) and the top Web 2.0 destinations (Flickr, Amazon S3). Apatar provides support, training, and consulting services for its integration solutions. Headquartered in Western Massachusetts, Apatar operates a development center in Minsk, Belarus. Apatar is currently used by 250 organizations and individuals worldwide. For more on Apatar, visit http://www.apatar.com or http://www.apatarforge.org

For more information, visit Apatar Press Room, at www.apatar.com/newsroom.