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PLM Industry Summary Editor: Christine Bennett Vol. 7 No 50, Friday 16 December 2005

Copyright © 2005 by CIMdata, Inc. All rights reserved. CIMdata, Inc. 3909 Research Park Drive Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108 Tel: +1 (734) 668�9922 Fax: +1 (734) 668�1957 E-mail: [email protected]

CONTENTS

Top Stories____________________________________________________________ 3 CIMdata Announces its 2006 PLM Vendor Forum Program: �PLM scope expansion � addressing the suppliers� challenges� ____________________________________________________________________________________ 3 Lufthansa Airlines Selects PTC Arbortext® to Create Flight Operation Manuals; Electronic Distribution of Manuals Saves Airline $1 Million In First Year_______________________________________________________________ 4

Acquisitions/Mergers ___________________________________________________ 5 Bentley Acquires RAM International________________________________________________________________ 5 Microsoft to Acquire UMT, a Leading Provider of Portfolio Management Software and Solutions________________ 6 Synopsys Completes Acquisition of HPL Technologies, Inc. _____________________________________________ 7

CIMdata News_________________________________________________________ 7 CIMdata in the News �Virtually Flawless� ___________________________________________________________ 7

Company News ________________________________________________________ 8 Altium Strengthens US Presence in Response to Customer Demand _______________________________________ 8 Arena Solutions Expands Management Team With Seasoned Technology Executive __________________________ 9 CollabNet Announces Reseller Channel Program for Software as a Service (SaaS); Global Leader in Distributed Development Forms Business Partner Program to Accelerate Channel Adoption of Internet-based Software and Services _____________________________________________________________________________________ 10 Continued Growth for CYA Technologies Spurs Expansion of Senior Management Team; Cindy Elliott and Michael Flickman Fill Two New Senior Management Positions_________________________________________________ 11 CYA Technologies Establishes European Presence by Opening UK Office; Company Develops Direct Reseller Program _____________________________________________________________________________________ 12 Lean Product Development Whitepaper From CoCreate________________________________________________ 13 Mystic Management Systems Relocates Its Headquarters _______________________________________________ 14 Prentice Hall "Fluid Mechanics for Chemical Engineers" Textbook Employs Fluent's CFD Software and Examples _ 15 Sino-French PLM Innovation Center Officially Opened in China_________________________________________ 16 3DVision Technologies Marks 10 Years of Success as SolidWorks Value-Added Reseller_____________________ 18 usb Makes an Important Contribution Towards CMII Certification of Agile 9 _______________________________ 19

Events News _________________________________________________________ 19 Agile to Participate in Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers' RoHS Compliance Seminar______________ 19 Intergraph Corporation Announces Intergraph 2006 ___________________________________________________ 20 Mark Your Calendars for SAPPHIRE '06 ___________________________________________________________ 20 Mastercam X Delivers New Ease, Speed and Power to Racing Industry: Mastercam X injects power into multi-axis toolpaths _____________________________________________________________________________________ 21 Sequence Showcases Low-Power Design Expertise at India's VLSI Design Conference _______________________ 22 Sequence Low-Power Design Seminar Attracts Top Japanese Electronics Companies; 29 Major Japanese Consumer Electronics Companies Attend Event Co-Sponsored By CoWare, Forte, HP ________________________________ 23 Spatial Announces Dates for Annual 3D Insiders' Summit 2006__________________________________________ 24

Financial News _______________________________________________________ 25 PTC Completes Asia-Pacific Investigation; Results of Investigation Not Material to Financial Results ___________ 25 Sequence Closes $5.3 Million Funding Round; Expands Into Fast-Growing International Markets, Boosts R&D To Maintain Low-Power Tech Lead __________________________________________________________________ 25

Implementation Investments_____________________________________________ 26 Alibre Design Gives FHC's Surgical Instruments an Edge: Affordable 3D Allows Small Firm to Undertake Big Projects______________________________________________________________________________________ 26 APC Uses Airflow Simulation to Solve Data Center Cooling Problem_____________________________________ 28

CIMdata PLM Industry Summary

Clark Nexsen Standardizes On GiveMePower Mobile and Wireless Field Solution After Completing US Navy Base Project 250% Faster ____________________________________________________________________________ 29 Distell Helps Ensure Compliance with Regulations Using Open Text�s Livelink ECM ________________________ 31 EMC Automates, Accelerates and Improves Compliance of Business Processes at York International ____________ 32 eSilicon Accelerates Design Cycles with Novas Verdi Debug System _____________________________________ 33 Freiburg, Germany Regional School District Purchases 1,000 Licenses of SolidWorks Education Edition _________ 34 Multin Hittech BV Powers Product Development With CoCreate's Collaboration Tool________________________ 36 Nissan Selects UGS� NX Software as New Standard for Its Next-generation Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) System to Design and Build New Vehicles __________________________________________________________________ 37 Packaging System Innovator Saves Time, Increases Quality with RuleStream_______________________________ 38 Tier-1 Automotive Supplier Albert Weber Standardizes on UGS Tecnomatix Solutions to Streamline Manufacturing Processes ____________________________________________________________________________________ 39 United States Air Force Streamlines Vehicle Fleet Management With MRO Software ________________________ 40 University of Central Lancashire Teaches Product Design and Engineering Skills with SolidWorks Education Edition____________________________________________________________________________________________ 41

Industry-Wide News ___________________________________________________ 43 OSCI Applauds Approval of IEEE SystemC� Standard; Fully Accredited Standard Met With Worldwide Industry Support______________________________________________________________________________________ 43

Product News_________________________________________________________ 45 Accept Software Releases Accept 360° Version 3.3 ___________________________________________________ 45 Agile Expands Compliance, Product Portfolio, Product Collaboration and Quality Management Capabilities in Latest Version of Leading PLM Solution _________________________________________________________________ 45 Agilent Technologies Announces Collaboration With CEA-Leti on Next-Generation Wireless System Design Flow_ 47 Apriso Corporation Announces FlexNet Version 9.3; Newest Version of Widely Used Software Provides Greater Manufacturing Agility, Adaptability _______________________________________________________________ 48 Blast Radius Introduces New XML Authoring Solutions for EMC Documentum ____________________________ 50 Cadence Delivers New RF Design Kit Targeting Customer Design Challenges in Wireless ____________________ 52 Clearvision Partners with CollabNet to Address Rapidly Growing Market for On-Demand Distributed Development and Application Lifecycle Management ____________________________________________________________ 53 Configuration Solutions and Infor Join Forces to Drive Value for Automotive Suppliers ______________________ 54 C O R R E C T I O N�Agile Software Corporation ___________________________________________________ 55 Delphi Technologies Strengthens Its Design Methodologies Portfolio With Two Additional Patents _____________ 55 ESPRIT Now Offers Solid Edge V18 Add-in Allowing Immediate Push-Button Transfer______________________ 57 FLUENT 6.3 Beta Release Shows CFD Performance Enhancements with the new Intel® C++ Compiler 9.0 for Linux____________________________________________________________________________________________ 57

Geometric Software Solutions Co. Ltd.�s Progress on CAD/PDM Product _________________________________ 58 Gerber Technology Announces Worldwide Strategic Alliance With ecVision _______________________________ 58 Kubotek USA Offers CADKEY Users a New Lease on Life ____________________________________________ 59 MfgQuote.com Unveils Manufacturing's First Online Collaborative Sourcing Service ________________________ 60 Microsoft and Autodesk Broaden Strategic Alliance to Enhance Productivity in Manufacturing, Engineering and Construction Industries _________________________________________________________________________ 62 Microsoft Unveils Five Solutions Built for Businesses in Growing, Dynamic Industries _______________________ 64 PTC Announces the Release of Arbortext® Advanced Print Publisher� 9.0________________________________ 65 Pulse Connect Launched ________________________________________________________________________ 67 Sierra Atlantic and Agile Announce Seamless Integration of SCMnet� on SAP NetWeaver®__________________ 68 Sun Microsystems and Synopsys Collaborate to Certify VCS Verification Solution for the Solaris 10 OS on x64 Platforms ____________________________________________________________________________________ 69 Synopsys Expands Mixed-Signal IP Portfolio With Interface Cell Libraries Featuring DDR2 SDRAM I/Os _______ 71 UGS Delivers Parasolid Version 17.1, the Latest Release of its Industry-Leading Geometric Modeling Software ___ 72 UGS� Solid Edge V18 Offers New Analysis Wizard for Design Engineers _________________________________ 73


Top Stories CIMdata Announces its 2006 PLM Vendor Forum Program: “PLM scope expansion – addressing the suppliers’ challenges” 15 December 2005

Consulting and research firm CIMdata, Inc. announces its 2006 PLM Vendor Forum schedule and program. These international one-day events will be held in Detroit, Michigan, USA on March 30th, in Stuttgart, Germany on April 11th, and in Tokyo, Japan on April 19th, 2006. CIMdata�s 2006 PLM Vendor Forum will provide a focused review of challenges that PLM strategy expansion creates for PLM suppliers, along with a discussion on effective strategies to address these challenges. As always, CIMdata�s perspective on the state of the PLM market and trends will be reviewed in detail, as well as the first public exposure to CIMdata�s 2005 PLM Market Analysis; including statistics regarding market growth across industries and regions, and the performance (revenue and market share analysis) of leading PLM providers.

Ken Amann, CIMdata Director of Research explained, �The PLM vision is focused on managing and supporting the full scope of the extended enterprise�s overall product lifecycle. Continuing rapid growth of PLM related investments demonstrates that companies clearly recognize the value of a business integrated PLM strategy, and its critical role in their future success.� Mr. Amann added, �As PLM has continued to evolve and mature, the scope continues to expand to more completely address the full product lifecycle. As a result, PLM strategies are expanding to incorporate initiatives in Digital Manufacturing, Service-After-Sales, Product Portfolio Management, Mechatronics, and a wide range of other programs. This broadening scope has also begun to impact other enterprise IT-based initiatives such as enterprise content management (ECM), customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP).�

Mr. Amann further explained, �PLM scope expansion is creating exciting opportunities for suppliers of PLM-related technologies and services, as well as tremendous challenges. New competition is emerging from different perspectives: new suppliers of solutions tightly focused on narrow functional areas, well established suppliers from tangent domains are overlapping with PLM, existing suppliers that are focusing on specific industries or size of customers, etc. In this highly dynamic and competitive environment, PLM suppliers must clearly understand and effectively articulate their focus and differentiation.�

CIMdata�s 2006 PLM Vendor Forum will provide a solid background for suppliers who want to better understand the market trends and benefit from them. For a detailed agenda, pricing and registration information, please go to 2006 Vendor Forum.

What is PLM?

PLM is a strategic approach that applies a consistent set of business solutions in support of the collaborative creation, management, dissemination, and use of product definition information. It spans the extended enterprise from product concept to end-of-life�integrating people, processes, business systems, and information. Leading solution providers recognize the importance of PLM to business, and

http://www.cimdata.com/events/forums.html


major industrial firms are already reaping significant benefits from their PLM implementations, in sectors ranging from aerospace and automotive to consumer packaged goods and petrochemical.

PLM ties together design, manufacturing, field service, purchasing, marketing, suppliers, customers, and other organizations and disciplines throughout extended intercompany supply chains. PLM allows companies to maximize their investment in resources, supply chain participants, and current and future IT technologies. It enables companies to unleash their past investments in multiple IT solutions, while maximizing their return-on-investment.

About CIMdata

CIMdata, a leading independent worldwide firm, provides strategic consulting to maximize an enterprise�s ability to design and deliver innovative products and services through the application of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). CIMdata works with both industrial organizations and suppliers of technologies and services seeking competitive advantage in the global economy by providing world-class knowledge, expertise, and best-practice methods on PLM solutions. CIMdata also conducts research, provides subscription services, produces several commercial publications, and offers industry education through international conferences in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. To learn more about CIMdata�s services, visit our website at http://www.CIMdata.com.

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Lufthansa Airlines Selects PTC Arbortext® to Create Flight Operation Manuals; Electronic Distribution of Manuals Saves Airline $1 Million In First Year

12 December 2005

PTC announced that Lufthansa Airlines is using Arbortext Editor� as the dynamic publishing system to support the creation and quarterly publication of its flight operation manuals to 4,500 pilots operating eight air fleets. As a result, Lufthansa has developed an innovative strategy to automate the assembly and publishing of its flight manuals saving them an estimated $1 million during the first year.

Aircraft documentation includes everything necessary to operate, service and maintain each aircraft. Sometimes amounting to well over 100,000 pages, each set of aircraft-specific information must be continually maintained to reflect its current status. Without complete and up-to-date information, aircraft are not allowed off the ground. Because each aircraft represents a multimillion-dollar investment, every extra hour on the ground costs tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. That's why it's crucial for pilots and mechanics to quickly locate information�the faster aircraft checks and maintenance can be performed, the faster the plane is back in the air. Lufthansa selected PTC Arbortext solutions because it enabled them to implement process improvements to enhance productivity, reduce costs and allow pilots and mechanics to focus on the aircraft rather than spending time searching for information.

PTC's dynamic publishing solutions are well suited to solve these challenges. Lufthansa uses Arbortext Editor as the cornerstone of their dynamic publishing system. Specifically, Arbortext Editor enables content reuse by creating information once that can be stored in either a file system or a content management system. As a result, authors will not waste time recreating content that currently exists,

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ultimately increasing accuracy and reducing review cycles. Automatically publishing dynamic information to multiple audiences insures that pilots and mechanics have accurate documentation on demand. These capabilities are delivered in a cohesive system, which translates into improved information quality and reduces the time an aircraft spends out of service.

"With Lufthansa Systems and its high level of competence, we now have established the worldwide first JAR OPS compatible solution for Flight Ops Documentation," said Udo Friedrich, Director of Flight Ops Engineering at Lufthansa Airlines. "It improves our competitiveness in the air traffic market while continually reducing our costs."

"The traditional method of creating and delivering aircraft documentation has been inefficient, costly and time-consuming," said PG Bartlett, vice president product management for Arbortext products, PTC. "Our solutions address the unique requirements of this industry and enable airlines to manage large-scale, on-demand, dynamic publishing across a number of audiences. We're excited to work with Lufthansa as they standardize on a fast, automated process to create and publish aircraft documentation."

Arbortext solutions are in place at many airlines and aircraft manufacturers, including Aermacchi, Airbus, Alenia Aerospace, Alitalia, Boeing, Bombardier, British Aerospace, Cessna, Delta, Finnair, Gulfstream, Harris, Lufthansa, Qantas, Saab Aircraft, Saab Aerospace, Skywest Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG ranks upfront among the world's leading airlines. As an Aviation Group, Lufthansa adheres firmly to economic and strategic criteria, focusing on the core competencies of its six business areas: passenger traffic, logistics, MRO, catering, leisure travel, and IT services. The Group attaches overriding importance to quality and innovation, safety and reliability.

PTC solutions for dynamic publishing enable companies to automate the assembly and publishing of product or service information in multiple languages and formats. These solutions are made up of the Arbortext product family and are used by 30% of Fortune 500 companies in the manufacturing, life sciences, publishing, government, insurance and financial services industries.


Acquisitions/Mergers Bentley Acquires RAM International 9 December 2005

Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced that it has acquired RAM International, LLC, a provider of structural engineering software for building structures made from all major materials, including steel and concrete.

RAM offerings include products for engineering modeling, analysis, and design. Bentley believes RAM is the most widely adopted software for these functions in the North American building industry. This


acquisition follows Bentley's acquisition last month of the STAAD product line, a global leader also in structural design and analysis.

Commenting on the RAM acquisition, Buddy Cleveland, senior vice president, Bentley Software, said, "Recently we welcomed all STAAD users to the Bentley user community. Today, this community has expanded yet again, and we welcome all RAM International users. They will continue to get product support and services of the highest quality."

"Also, we are eager to advance RAM's entire product line, providing users with increasing capabilities," continued Cleveland. "But most exciting is the common vision that Bentley, RAM, and STAAD developers share�leveraging the power of analysis throughout the workflows of building, civil, and plant lifecycles. We are convinced that our results will be game-changing."

Bentley's vision for leveraging the power of analysis includes: integrating design and analysis in multiple disciplines, eliminating the information loss within engineering workflows, and embedding interactive, front-end analysis into design decisions. The company will hold a press and executive briefing on Thursday, January 5, 2006, at 11 a.m. EST to lay out that vision and introduce the new group appointed to achieve it.

Bentley will also detail product plans for the RAM and STAAD lines. Included in the briefing will be RAM International's founder and now vice president at Bentley, Michael Markovitz.

For more information on the briefing, contact Christine Byrne, media relations manager for Bentley, at +1 203 805 0432 or [email protected].


Microsoft to Acquire UMT, a Leading Provider of Portfolio Management Software and Solutions

16 December 2005

Microsoft Corp. announced the intent to acquire software and IP assets from UMT, a project and portfolio management software and consulting firm that helps companies create, manage and optimize project, application, product and process portfolios. Microsoft expects to combine the technology and expertise of UMT with its existing Microsoft® Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution based on Microsoft Office Project Professional 2003 and Microsoft Office Project Server 2003.

"UMT founders Mike Gruia, Yorai Linenberg and I share Microsoft's vision of bringing enterprise project and portfolio management together, and have built the UMT business on innovating to meet customers' portfolio management needs," said Gil Makleff, CEO North America at UMT. "We look forward to working with Microsoft to develop solutions that help customers better manage their project portfolios and accelerate their business success."


Founded in 1989 with headquarters in New York City, UMT connects the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management Solution with UMT's leading Portfolio Management solution via the UMT Microsoft Project Server Gateway. This helps organizations identify and prioritize the right portfolio of projects as well as execute successfully against deadlines, scope and budget. With the acquisition, Microsoft will further align the best of the portfolio and project management worlds for customers.

"With UMT's technology and portfolio framework, we will extend the Office EPM Solution to offer an end-to-end enterprise project and portfolio management solution," said Chris Capossela, corporate vice president of the Information Worker Product Management Group at Microsoft. "Through the acquisition, we will be able to more quickly deliver on our vision of bringing project and portfolio management capabilities to all levels of an organization."

Terms of the acquisition were not announced. UMT will maintain all current operations until the transaction closes. Following the acquisition, some members of the UMT executive team and a number of UMT product development employees are expected to join the Microsoft Office Project team. The consulting arm of UMT will remain a separate entity and become the UMT Consulting Group to help provide successful implementations of the Microsoft portfolio management software platform.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.


Synopsys Completes Acquisition of HPL Technologies, Inc.

7 December 2005

Synopsys, Inc. announced it has completed its acquisition of HPL Technologies, Inc., a provider of yield management software and test chip solutions. The acquisition makes Synopsys the first electronic design automation (EDA) company with a comprehensive design-to-silicon flow that links directly into the semiconductor manufacturing process. Synopsys acquired HPL in an all-cash deal valued at approximately $13 million, or $0.30 per share.

A key benefit of the HPL acquisition is that it gives Synopsys direct access to the yield data needed to reduce systematic defectivity. By extending Synopsys� process solutions directly into the fab, Synopsys can help customers accelerate the introduction of new designs by significantly reducing the time it takes to get from concept to manufacturing


CIMdata News CIMdata in the News “Virtually Flawless”

12 December 2005


The idea behind digital manufacturing is to leverage IT to collaboratively develop the manufacturing plan and manufacturing equipment simultaneously with the product. Why is this important? Because design flaws, manufacturing kinks and inefficient processes can be hammered out and corrected early on when changes create little disruption of critical time-to-market schedules. The potential cost savings are huge. While the concept isn't entirely new (early iterations were known as concurrent engineering or design for assembly), it's only now starting to take root. CIMdata, a consulting and research firm specializing in product lifecycle management issues, estimates that investments in digital manufacturing technologies will grow at a clip of more than 25 percent annually for the next three years.

Want to learn more about digital manufacturing? Read the article Virtually Flawless? by Beth Stackpole in CIO Magazine, 12/12/05.


Company News Altium Strengthens US Presence in Response to Customer Demand

12 December 2005

Altium Limited, a developer of Windows-based electronics design software, announced the expansion of its US office operations with the recent appointment of Mike Stipe as Vice President of Sales, Americas, along with the establishment of Altium's Global Customer Care headquarters in US. This new appointment, in conjunction with that of Matthew Schwaiger, as Director, Global Customer Care, is in direct response to growing customer demand for Altium's products and reinforces Altium's commitment to ensuring customer success.

"We are very pleased to announce the expansion of our US operations, and to appoint Mike Stipe to lead our sales organization there," said Nick Martin, founder and CEO, Altium. "We recognize the value and importance of our US customers and Mike's passion for customer care coupled with his strong sales experience and market knowledge will contribute greatly to both Altium and our users in this region."

Mike Stipe brings to Altium over 17 years of experience in executive and management positions at both Fortune 500 and entrepreneurial technology companies. Prior experience includes: VP Sales & Marketing for Effnet, VP Sales for NonStopNet and District Manager for Motorola and most recently as Regional Sales Director at Aperture. He also serves as a board member for Unity Care Group. Mike holds a degree in Business Administration from the College of Idaho.

The establishment of Altium's Global Customer Care headquarters in the US also reflects Altium's increasing market penetration. Global Customer Care provides a top-level resource for engineers, both in the US and internationally, with direct access to Altium's R&D resources. This gives Altium customers instant access to a global team of professional and skilled support engineers who have the ability to deal with customers at a local level.

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"Our success depends solely on the success of our customers," said Matthew Schwaiger, Director, Global Customer Care. "I really take that motto to heart. When someone uses Altium Designer to create a successful product, it reflects back on Altium's credibility. That's why the Global Customer Care team takes its job so seriously in helping engineers enhance their productivity and ultimately gain significant ROI in their electronic design software."

"Altium Designer is much easier to use than competing software and I can't think of another company that is anywhere close to Altium in support," said Dan Bay, President, Bay Enterprises. "The fact that Altium's Global Customer Care team monitor and respond to forums, providing almost instant assistance and support is great. Altium tools are the perfect solution for PCB designers making the transition to FPGA design. With this level of support available you can't go wrong."

Founded in 1985, Altium released the world's first Microsoft Windows-based printed circuit board design tool in 1991, and continues to provide advanced, easy-to-use and affordable software design tools for complete electronic product development to electronics engineers, designers, and developers worldwide.

Altium is headquartered in Sydney, Australia, with sales and support offices in Australia, the United States, Japan, China and Europe�as well as maintaining a large reseller network in all other major markets.

For more information please visit http://www.altium.com.


Arena Solutions Expands Management Team With Seasoned Technology Executive

12 December 2005

Arena Solutions announced the appointment of Mark Holman as senior vice president of operations and strategic development. In this role, Holman will be responsible for strategic development, account management and professional services at Arena Solutions.

"We're building strength and expertise into our management team to support the growing demand for our Arena PLM solution," said Michael Topolovac, chief executive officer of Arena Solutions. "Mark has a proven track record in global electronics and the supply chain software industry and brings a wealth of knowledge, operational expertise and functional proficiency to fuel our growth in the on-demand PLM market."

"On-demand is the future of enterprise software and Arena's on-demand PLM solution is pivotal to the success of product manufacturers worldwide who are faced with increasing pressure to deliver products to market faster, growing compliance regulations, and an ever-expanding global supply chain," said Mark Holman. "Manufacturers have been clamoring for a PLM solution that is simple to deploy, low cost and doesn't have a wait-and-see approach for years, and now they have one. Arena PLM enables a new world of collaboration and product development opportunities that are not possible using traditional enterprise software. I am excited to be joining this world-class team and look forward to working with our

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customers to deliver the solutions that will shape the next generation of manufacturing and product development."

Prior to joining Arena Solutions, Mark was the founding CEO of E2Open, a leading on-demand provider of application and middleware software and network operations for the integration of global supply chains. Under Mark's leadership E2Open generated over $15 million in revenue, built global operations in 3 continents, and was widely recognized as a thought and market leader in B2B e-commerce. Previously, Mark was Corporate Vice President, Marketing, Strategic Planning and Corporate Development for Solectron Corporation, the world's leading electronics supply chain management company. As a member of the executive management team, Mark helped guide Solectron's growth from $1.4 billion in revenues to over $14 billion, resulting in the company's move to #1 in market share and an increase in market capitalization from $1.5 billion to $25 billion (CAGR of 75+%). Prior to Solectron, Mark was a senior associate at Booz-Allen & Hamilton, where he provided supply chain, design strategy and technology consulting to over 15 clients across multiple industries. Mark began his career at General Motors, where he was responsible for managing the development of various systems for the Chevrolet Corvette.

Mark received an MBA from the University of Michigan, and a bachelor of science in Electrical Engineering from Kettering University.


CollabNet Announces Reseller Channel Program for Software as a Service (SaaS); Global Leader in Distributed Development Forms Business Partner Program to Accelerate Channel Adoption of Internet-based Software and Services 16 December 2005

CollabNet announced that it is accelerating the channel's role in the global trend toward Internet-based software and services by establishing the CollabNet Global Business Partner Program.

The new CollabNet channel program is the industry's first partner enablement offering that specifically targets developers of Software as a Service (SaaS), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and other on-demand, Internet-based software and applications. CollabNet set the stage for the partner-driven delivery of distributed development tools and outsourcing methodologies as the primary backer, thought leader, and underwriter of the Subversion open source version control system.

"CollabNet believes the time is right for the broad adoption of distributed development methodologies�particularly as the industry is undergoing a massive shift to Software as a Service, Service Oriented Architectures, and global development projects," said Chris Clabaugh, Vice President of Business Development for CollabNet. "We have aligned our new CollabNet Global Business Partner Program to empower our channel partners with the business and technical resources they need to address their customer's needs for distributed development and rapid adoption of Web-based offerings. CollabNet, together with our valued business partners, will continue to gain significant market share of one of the most enticing markets to emerge so far this century: Distributed Development On Demand."


CollabNet is leveraging its leadership role in the growing market for next-generation distributed development and change management solutions by partnering with software change management experts and other leaders in the development of applications, embedded software, and complex systems. As the recognized leader in the movement to embrace distributed development methodologies, CollabNet is encouraging reseller, community, technology, and services organizations to partner with the company to develop their markets and deliver high-value solutions by incorporating next-generation, on-demand distributed development, and application lifecycle management services.

In a related announcement, CollabNet announced that Clearvision PLC, Europe's leading independent specialist for software change management (SCM), has become a charter member of the new CollabNet Global Business Partner Program.

About the CollabNet Global Business Partner Program

The new CollabNet Global Business Partner Program is a channel empowerment program aimed at expanding the market for distributed development delivered as a service. CollabNet has developed its On-Demand Collaborative Advantage� as a channel-driven business model, which takes a cooperative, partner-centric approach to key opportunity development processes across lead generation and needs assessment, order taking, fulfillment and installation and integration services. The CollabNet program offerings are custom tailored to the business requirements and long-term market vision of its partners. Initial program offerings cover demand generation and sales acceleration, joint marketing and communications, technical resources, support and training.

CollabNet is a provider of solutions for on-demand collaborative development that enable globally distributed teams of software developers to complete software projects on-time, on-target, and on-budget. Using CollabNet, software teams can collaborate on development across multiple locations within the extended enterprise or securely integrate business partners, contractors, or offshore development firms.


Continued Growth for CYA Technologies Spurs Expansion of Senior Management Team; Cindy Elliott and Michael Flickman Fill Two New Senior Management Positions

13 December 2005

CYA Technologies, Inc. announced the appointments of Cyndi Elliott as the director of business development and Michael Flickman as the vice president of engineering and CTO.

As the director of business development, Cindy Elliott will lead CYA's efforts in further developing the company's relationships with strategic partners such as EMC and IBM, and building private label partnerships with independent software developers (ISV's). Michael Flickman, who joins CYA as the vice president of engineering and CTO, is responsible for the planning, design and implementation of all core product development activities. His experience and expertise will enable CYA to deliver additional products and functionality to meet customer demands. Michael will also serve as the company's technical spokesperson.

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Wayne Crandall, president and CEO of CYA, remarked, "The expansion of our senior management team is in response to the success and continued growth of CYA. Both Cindy and Michael bring additional talent and experience to the company team."

Cindy brings more than ten years of experience in worldwide business development within the enterprise software and storage hardware industries. She was formerly a member of the Verity Business Process Management team (formerly Cardiff Software) where she was responsible for global marketing programs, product marketing management and customer programs. Prior to Verity, Cindy was the Latin American operations manager and the Asia Pacific-Latin American sales executive at Overland Storage.

Michael joins CYA with more than 25 years of technology and product experience in enterprise software development, infrastructure architecture & management, commercial software development, product management, development process improvement and project management. Before joining the company, Michael held executive management positions in companies such as Eventra Inc., Concrete Inc., Rare Medium and Concentrex (formerly MECA Software). He also held senior engineering positions at companies such as Apple Computer and Data General.

Headquartered in Trumbull, Conn., CYA Technologies, Inc. is a business continuity software provider whose solutions add value to traditional backup systems in the EMC Documentum ILM market. They provide the only solution for EMC Documentum that enables users to quickly recover discrete content and its properties without having to perform a full-system restore. Accredited by the Designed for Documentum program, CYA has over 250 deployments around the world. For more information about CYA Technologies, visit http://www.cya.com.


CYA Technologies Establishes European Presence by Opening UK Office; Company Develops Direct Reseller Program

14 December 2005

CYA Technologies Inc. announced the opening of its new European headquarters located in England and the termination of its master reselling agreement with German-based, Phoenix Systems Integration, GmbH.

CYA changed its European distribution strategy to leverage market opportunities and establish direct relationships with end users and reselling partners. With the termination of its master reselling agreement with Phoenix Systems Integration, GmbH, CYA has already begun to firmly establish new, direct relationships with local resellers such as Fujitsu and Extended Content Solutions in the UK, SWIPe in Germany, Croc in Russia and TietoEnator located in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Christian Schacht, director for SWIPe said, "We are pleased that we now have the opportunity to work directly with CYA. As a reseller of their solutions, we are able to offer our customers an expanded list of products and services."

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CYA's recent success with global companies such as Nokia, Luftansa and Johnson & Johnson led the company to establish a European office in order to provide the necessary infrastructure for efficient global deployment.

The new European office, headed by Phil Harmon, director of European operations, will provide a range of resources for CYA customers and partners throughout Europe including sales, systems engineering and customer and technical support.

"The opening of our own direct operation in Europe underscores CYA's commitment to our customers and partners around the globe," said Wayne Crandall, president and CEO of CYA. "Our direct presence will enable us to better serve both our customers and reselling partners in delivering CYA solutions to the market."

Headquartered in Trumbull, Conn., CYA Technologies, Inc. is the only business continuity provider whose solutions augment traditional backup systems by enabling ECM users to recover discrete content and its valuable properties without requiring a full-system restore. For more information about CYA Technologies, please visit http://www.cya.com.


Lean Product Development Whitepaper From CoCreate 16 December 2005

CoCreate Software announced the availability of a new whitepaper, OneSpace 3G PLM: Achieving lean product development. The paper is available at: http://www.cocreate.com/lpd_whitepaper.cfm.

Globalization is introducing new competitors, new opportunities and new ways of working. Product lifecycles are compressing in a race to satisfy customer wants ahead of the competition. Companies face rapidly evolving designs under intense time to market pressure. Rigid product development processes that can't respond to change and dynamically adapt are broken.

The solution lies with lean product development. With it, companies unleash speed, flexibility and responsiveness to change within the product development process.

Lean product development:

* Eliminates the waste of re-design, faulty design and data duplication

introduced by inflexible design systems and time differences between

locations.

* Responds rapidly to change, allowing opportunities for more design

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http://www.cocreate.com/lpd_whitepaper.cfm


iterations to occur within development and accommodating even major

design changes later in the design cycle.

* Offers speed for time-to-market advantage.

* Enables true team design, eliminating bottlenecks common in linear

development processes.

* Transitions design to manufacturing for a continuous flow

from concept to production.

* Transparently engages distributed design, supply and manufacturing

partners in the product development process.

This whitepaper highlights the differences between linear and lean product development processes and how the OneSpace product suite helps companies in their lean transformation.


Mystic Management Systems Relocates Its Headquarters 13 December 2005

Mystic Management Systems, a developer and service provider of document control and specification management applications, announced that after 22 years at 12 Roosevelt Avenue, Mystic, Connecticut, it will be relocating its Headquarters to Norwich, Connecticut. The move will accommodate recent growth and enable Mystic Management Systems to continue to strive for excellence within a working environment and community committed to the expansion of businesses.

Bob Sullivan, President of Mystic Management Systems, states, �We are extremely excited about our new office facility in Norwich. This new space is designed and a more conducive area for serving our clients even more efficiently and is a great fit for accommodating our future growth.�

�Mystic Management Systems is a progressive company that serves clients here in Connecticut and as far away as the Philippines and Australia, including the likes of Coca Cola, Wyeth, Duracell, Alcon Laboratories and The Clorox Company,� said Benjamin Lathrop, Mayor of Norwich. �As a software developer that employs highly skilled professionals, Mystic Management Systems is bringing to Norwich, the kinds of jobs and opportunities that enhance our community. We welcome Bob Sullivan and his staff to the City of Norwich and look forward to a wonderful business relationship.�


Mystic Management Systems headquarters will close at the end of business Friday, December 30, 2005 and reopens on Tuesday, January 3, 2006 at its new offices located at:

190 West Town Street

Norwich, Connecticut, 06360 USA

New Telephone Number: (01) 860-887-2900


Prentice Hall "Fluid Mechanics for Chemical Engineers" Textbook Employs Fluent's CFD Software and Examples 15 December 2005

Fluent Inc. announced its contribution to the new undergraduate engineering textbook by James Wilkes; Fluid Mechanics for Chemical Engineers, Second Edition, with Microfluidics and CFD, published by Prentice Hall. This Second Edition is a revision of the fluid mechanics book for chemical engineers. Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, Dr. Wilkes has authored several textbooks in the area of numerical methods and this latest book provides a comprehensive overview of numerical methods specific to the field of fluid mechanics.

The book is a comprehensive text that offers an understanding of fluid mechanics essential for the chemical engineer. Thorough and clearly written, it gives the undergraduate and first-year graduate student a complete overview of this essential topic by providing numerous real-world chemical engineering examples and problems of increasing detail and complexity.

Dr. Chi-Yang Cheng, of Fluent Inc., was invited by Dr. Wilkes to write a completely new chapter for the 2nd Edition, introducing CFD and FlowLab (Fluent's educational CFD software product). Dr. Cheng's chapter presents an overview of numerical methods specific to CFD. Four FlowLab-based CFD exercises are reviewed in the chapter to reinforce important underlying concepts as well as the best methods of practice with CFD software in chemical engineering:

! Developing Flow in a Pipe

! Pipe Flow through Sudden Expansion

! Flow in a Mixing Elbow

! Flow Over a Cylinder "Professor Wilkes has been very active in promoting the integration of computational tools into the chemical engineering curriculum, especially fluid mechanics, throughout his academic career. The quality, depth, and elegant style of his presentation of fluid mechanics and CFD methodology in this book are self-evident. I believe this new edition will be a very substantial addition to the fluid mechanics literature," said Dr. Cheng. "I have many years of college teaching experience myself, and it is generally

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understood that an ideal CFD teaching tool must be powerful and simple to use so that the critically important message we are trying to pass to the students is not overwhelmed by the complexity of the tool. FlowLab is a very good package to meet both of these requirements."

"The use of CFD examples in the classroom really makes the subject come 'alive,' because the previous restrictive necessities of 'nice' geometries and boundary conditions and constant physical properties can now be lifted," stated Dr. Wilkes. "As a consequence, a variety of more practical examples can now be investigated, and the student can concentrate more on seeing and interpreting the physical aspects of the fluid-flow patterns, rather than solely being wrapped up in the mathematics of the solution. Now that the k-ε turbulence method is available in PC-based software, turbulent flows can be investigated in more complex and practical situations, even including recirculating flows that involve, for example, convection of turbulence and jet mixing."

Find out more about Fluid Mechanics for Chemical Engineers

Find out more about FlowLab About the Author

James O. Wilkes is Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he served as department chairman and assistant dean for admissions. From 1989 to 1992, he was an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor. Wilkes coauthored Applied Numerical Methods (Wiley, 1969) and Digital Computing and Numerical Methods (Wiley, 1973). He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Cambridge and his M.S. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan. His research interests involve numerical methods for solving a wide variety of engineering problems.

About Prentice Hall

Established in 1913 by Charles Gerstenberg and Richard Ettinger, Prentice Hall successfully publishes introductory through advanced-level textbooks, professional reference publications, and monographs. Eighty-five years after its foundation, Prentice Hall merged with the world's leading educational and professional publisher-Pearson Education. Since 1998, Prentice Hall has continued to define itself as a market leader in educational, technical, and reference publishing and also as an innovator in online learning and support. Additional information is available at http://www.prenhallprofessional.com/.


Sino-French PLM Innovation Center Officially Opened in China 6 December 2005

The official opening ceremony of the new Product Lifecycle Management Innovation Center (PLMIC) at the prestigious Tsinghua University took place today. Attended by Chinese and French dignitaries and representatives from the three partners in the project ─ the French AIP-PRIMECA network, Dassault

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Systèmes (DS) and Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) ─ the ceremony embodied the spirit of cooperation which has brought about this international venture, destined to accelerate PLM innovation in China.

The new center, with its state-of-the-art PLM solutions from DS, the latest workstation technology from HP and the teaching support of AIP-PRIMECA, a group of French engineering schools, will give students a world-class education using the very latest PLM applications and providing the best environment for PLM research projects.

Gu Binlin, President of Tsinghua University, stated, "The PLMIC will be a center of excellence, giving all our departments access to the very latest PLM technologies. This valuable educational cooperation between France and China in the engineering discipline will give our students a great advantage, increasing their skills and their eventual potential in industry. We are delighted to be partnered by these distinguished and forward-thinking organizations in this project."

The center will implement DS's V5 PLM software solutions - CATIA, ENOVIA, SMARTEAM and DELMIA - on workstations sponsored by HP. Delivering cost-effective computational and visualization power, HP workstations were chosen to meet the demands of a highly-productive IT engineering environment.

"Dassault Systèmes is proud to be part of an initiative that enhances both young people�s education and the future of the Chinese industry," noted Francis Bernard, Executive Committee Advisor and Board Member, Dassault Systèmes. "The design process is where innovation typically takes place, and PLM can give engineering firms a real competitive advantage in today's market."

As a founding member of the Sino-French PLM Innovation Center at Tsinghua University, HP's industry leading workstation technology is empowering the next generation of Tsinghua graduates with the skills required to meet the challenges of an increasingly globalized, dynamic and fast-changing engineering industry. This effort, in collaboration with long-time partner Dassault Systèmes, is part of HP's ongoing investments and long-term commitment to the Chinese market.

AIP-PRIMECA, a network of French engineering schools (which includes, notably, INPG, ENS Cachan, ENSAM and the Ecole Centrale de Nantes), was entrusted by the French Ministry of Education, who set up this center with the afore-mentioned partners, with the mission of ensuring that the students receive a world-class education in PLM, and will staff the center with a Co-Director and visiting professors.

"To be successful in design engineering today, we need to be able to exchange information and collaborate with colleagues anywhere in the world," said Professor Daniel Coutellier, Director of the AIP-PRIMECA Network. "This center creates a new international opportunity. It is envisioned the course offering will expand, and may lead to joint French-Chinese diplomas." Tsinghua University and AIP-PRIMECA's initial educational cooperation will be on developing four training modules in Integrated Design and Manufacturing in Mechanical Engineering, to be taught by the French professors sent over on exchange.

Tsinghua University was established in 1911. Its graduate school has been recognized nationally, ranking first in the National Evaluation of Graduate Schools. Currently, the university consists of 44 departments


distributed over 11 schools: Sciences, Architecture, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Information Science and Technology, Humanities and Social Sciences, Economics and Management, Law, Arts and Design, Public Policy and Management, and Applied Technology. A medical school is currently being established. For more information, go to http://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/eng/.

The AIP-PRIMECA network comprises nine regional poles that provide more than 1 million two thousand hours of training on their platforms. Its mission is to organize common development projects and various events that promote the exchange of experience and capitalize on knowledge in the areas of Integrated Mechanical Design and Production. It supports research efforts and the evolution of training in these domains. Respecting the policies of the partner establishments, the AIP-PRIMECA poles organize initial and lifelong education in all areas of industrial automation and integrated mechanical design, covering the product life cycle. The poles encourage the creation of coordinated teaching teams and ensure that acquired materials and software are top of the line. To learn more, visit http://www.aip-primeca.net.

HP is a technology solutions provider to consumers, businesses and institutions globally. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, global services, business and home computing, and imaging and printing. For the four fiscal quarters ended July 31, 2005, HP revenue totaled US$85.2 billion. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com/.


3DVision Technologies Marks 10 Years of Success as SolidWorks Value-Added Reseller

12 December 2005

3DVision Technologies Corp. announced its 10-year anniversary as a value-added reseller (VAR) of SolidWorks® software. The company was founded in Cincinnati, OH, in November of 1995; the same month SolidWorks Corp. released the first version of SolidWorks 3D mechanical design software.

Following along with the market success of SolidWorks software, the company over the years has expanded by opening offices in Louisville, KY, in 1998, Columbus, OH, in 2000, Dayton, OH, in 2002, Cleveland, OH, in 2003, and Evansville and Indianapolis, IN, Lexington, KY, and Toledo, OH, in 2005.

Today the company's nine training and support facilities serve over 1,000 customers representing every industry. For the past two years, 3DVision Technologies has been named one of the Tri-State area's 50 fastest growing companies for 2004 by the Cincinnati Business Courier. The Fast 50 is made up of the Tri-State's 50 fastest-growing companies that demonstrate the highest three-year growth rate in revenues based on Courier research.

"I'm very happy with the success we've had over the past decade, but looking forward I would like to see the company become the market leader for SolidWorks sales in the Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky regions," says Todd Majeski, president of 3DVision Technologies. "I believe the next 10 years will bring the largest growth opportunities for our customers as they increase their use of design validation tools. We've seen our CAE division double in growth over the past two years and we will continue to bolster our technical staff to meet the needs of our customers in those areas."

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For more information on the company, visit http://www.3dvision.com.


usb Makes an Important Contribution Towards CMII Certification of Agile 9

December 2005

Usb announced that it played a key role in enabling Agile to gain CMII certification of Agile 9, which was announced in an Agile press release issued 24 October 2005, and included in the CIMdata newsletter dated 28th October 2005.

�We have a longstanding partnership with usb, and are pleased with the support we received from them throughout the CMII certification process. We have been impressed with the experience and technical expertise of usb�s CMII certified staff,� said Bryan Stolle, Agile CEO.

Founded in 1982, usb specializes in requirements management, configuration management and MRO. usb also supports companies in all issues affecting the CMII certification of tools or services in accordance with the rules of the ICM (Institute for Configuration Management).

usb has had a partnership with Agile (formerly Eigner) since 1998 and drove the CMII certification of Agile e6. usb has been working with the ICM in Phoenix, Arizona, the GfKM in Germany and has attended annual CM conferences since 1995.


Events News Agile to Participate in Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers' RoHS Compliance Seminar

14 December 2005

WHO: Dries D'hooghe, senior director of product strategy and management at Agile Software Corporation is scheduled to present at the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers' (AHAM) RoHS Compliance Seminar.

WHAT: This seminar is designed to assist companies in compliance with the European Union's Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS). The latest developments in product compliance, legal issues and management of the supply chain will be discussed. Dries will be making a presentation that will detail how PLM software can be used to manage product information such as bills of materials, forms and records against standards and regulatory requirements, including RoHS.

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WHEN/WHERE: This seminar takes place on Thursday, December 15, 2005, from 8:00am-5:30pm, at the Marriott Key Bridge Hotel in Rosslyn (Arlington), Virginia. Dries will be making his presentation from 2:15pm-3:00pm.


Intergraph Corporation Announces Intergraph 2006 15 December 2005

Intergraph Corporation announced Intergraph 2006, the company�s new flagship international users conference, to be held June 12-15, 2006 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, at Disney�s Coronado Springs Resort. In its inaugural year the conference will bring together Intergraph�s Apex, Geospatial World and Public Safety Users Conferences into a single international conference showcasing Intergraph�s full range of spatial information management technologies.

�Bringing together all of our customers and partners from around the world allows us to highlight our organizational synergies and the true value Intergraph provides our customers and the industries we serve,� said R. Halsey Wise, Intergraph president and CEO. �Intergraph 2006 will showcase our organizational strategy and vision, highlighting our continued commitment to focusing on innovative solutions that differentiate our company and provide a competitive advantage to our customers. We look forward to demonstrating how our capabilities will help to influence the future.�

Customers and partners from more than 60 countries around the globe including senior executives, business managers, decision makers and other users will participate in solution and industry-specific programs developed to maximize returns on their Intergraph investments. In addition to hands-on training and networking, attendees will discuss and evaluate industry insights and best practices, exploring industry-specific challenges and imperatives for success in today�s dynamic marketplace.

information, visit http://www.intergraph.com.


Mark Your Calendars for SAPPHIRE '06

December 2005

Want to exchange ideas with your decision-making peers? Eager to learn about value-added business and technology solutions? Meet business people in more than 25 industries from all over the world to share the latest business and technical ideas and explore innovative business solutions that give you a competitive edge. Come to:

SAPPHIRE '06 Orlando, May 16�18, 2006, Orlando, USA

SAPPHIRE '06 Paris, May 30�June 1, 2006, Paris, France

http://www.intergraph2006.com/default_flash.asp

http://www.intergraph.com/

http://www1.sapsapphire.com/usa2006/index.epx

http://www.sap.com/company/events/sapphire/Paris06.epx


Join SAP, our partners, and your peers at the world's most comprehensive business and technical event, held in two convenient locations. SAPPHIRE '06 Orlando and SAPPHIRE '06 Paris are ideal forums for learning about the latest tools, tips, and techniques for maximizing ROI and minimizing TCO.


Mastercam X Delivers New Ease, Speed and Power to Racing Industry: Mastercam X injects power into multi-axis toolpaths December 2005

The newly released Mastercam X CAD/CAM software will be showcased at the Manufacturing for Performance show in booth # 1313 at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, IN on January 24-25. Dramatically streamlined and featuring powerful, new features, Mastercam X has been designed to reduce programmer interaction and increase machining flexibility.

Mastercam X delivers a new, streamlined customizable interface. Specially designed to minimize user interaction while maximizing programming options, the new interface is completely customizable and can be set to each person�s specific preferences. Mastercam�s new �smart� ribbon bar further boosts efficiency and maximizes workspace by appearing only when needed, and displaying tools specific to the job at hand.

Mastercam X includes capabilities for enhanced multi-axis cutting, helping insure safer and more accurate 5-axis machining. �Multi-axis users can now program with even more confidence,� says CNC Software President Mark Summers. �These tools add extra strength to our powerful set of multi-axis options.� Some new features include:

Shank and Holder Collision Detection-

By simply defining a tool with its shank and holder, Mastercam can check that the tooling setup does not strike areas that would violate the part. This powerful feature will automatically detect and remove any motion in 5-axis multi-surface, 5-axis flowline, swarf, and 5-axis curve toolpaths that would violate the part�s check surfaces.

Approach/Retract Checking

As the tool moves toward and away from a part, Mastercam checks to make sure it is not violating the part.

Mastercam�s multi-axis machining includes a suite of additional tools such as undercut programming, setting negative stock for flat end mills, and improved translators.

�Mastercam X marks an exciting new chapter for our software,� says Summers. �We�ve put a lot of hard work into developing new techniques that will dramatically improve the three most important areas for

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an NC programmer � ease and flexibility in programming any toolpath, the toolpath calculation speed, and superior toolpath output.�

Mastercam X features a suite of new programming tools, including the powerful new Pencil Offset Finishing toolpath. This new surface machining technique extends the crisp �cleanup� of a pencil trace toolpath across an entire part by automatically sectioning the part into logical machining areas.

Mastercam X also introduces Machine and Control Definition. These are virtual descriptions of the actual machine tool and control you will use to cut a part, allowing Mastercam to automatically customize its interface based on your CNC machine. This means that Mastercam X is aware of what the machine can and cannot do, helping ensure a correctly programmed part.

Developed by CNC Software, Inc., Mastercam is Windows®-based CAD/CAM software for 2- through 5-axis milling and turning; 2- and 4-axis wire EDM; 2D and 3D design, surface, and solid modeling; artistic relief cutting, and 2D and 3D routing. CNC Software is a privately owned corporation founded in 1984. The U.S.-based company provides Mastercam CAD/CAM solutions to more than 85,000 installations in 75 countries in industries including mold-making, prototyping, automotive, medical, aerospace, and consumer products. Mastercam runs under Windows 2000, and Windows XP and is compatible with all other CAD/CAM systems. For more information about CNC Software, Inc. and its Mastercam family of products, contact CNC Software, Inc., M�F, 8 AM�6 PM EST at (800) 228-2877 or (860) 875-5006, 671 Old Post Road, Tolland, CT 06084. Or visit http://www.mastercam.com.


Sequence Showcases Low-Power Design Expertise at India's VLSI Design Conference 9 December 2005

Sequence Design returns as an exhibitor for next month's VLSI Design Conference Jan. 3-7, 2006 in Hyderabad, India, Booth No. 21. The conference theme, "Mobile Embedded Systems," ties in perfectly with Sequence's show offerings that excel in managing and optimizing power in a variety of portable applications.

Sequence will exhibit its complete lineup of tools for low-power design, including PowerTheater�, a complete toolkit for SoC power analysis and optimization; CoolPower�, providing physical power optimization for leakage power, and dynamic power; and CoolTime�, for static and dynamic power grid analysis and optimization.

Sequence India director, Sanjay Budhwar, will deliver a presentation on power management and power-grid integrity during the Industry Forum presentations on Saturday, Jan. 7, 4:30pm. Those interested in scheduling meetings and/or demos at the show may contact Sequence India at: [email protected], or telephone, 0120-2433862.

Sequence has invested Rs. 20 Crores (over $4.5 million) in India according to company president and CEO Vic Kulkarni, a 1974 IIT Bombay graduate. Its new offices in Noida's Logix Techno Park focus on

http://www.mastercam.com/

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mailto:[email protected]


engineering, marketing, and support for Sequence's growing customer base in Japan and southeast Asia, and are an integral part of the company's worldwide R&D efforts. Sequence's distributor in India is D'gipro Design Automation & Marketing, whose representatives will be joining the company during the conference.

The International Conference on VLSI Design is a leading international conference on VLSI design, drawing 700 attendees from India and abroad. The conference is dedicated to all aspects of integrated circuit design, technology, and computer-aided design. For more information: http://www.vlsiconference.com/.


Sequence Low-Power Design Seminar Attracts Top Japanese Electronics Companies; 29 Major Japanese Consumer Electronics Companies Attend Event Co-Sponsored By CoWare, Forte, HP 15 December 2005

A recent seminar in Tokyo on low-power design issues and strategies sponsored by Sequence Design, CoWare, Forte Design Systems, and HP attracted chip designers from 29 major Japanese electronics companies, racing to solve major problems affecting chip design for consumer, mobile, and highly integrated devices. The seminar focused on four areas: predicting power consumption early in the design cycle, reduction of switching power consumption, reduction of leakage power, and efficient power-grid design.

Keynote speaker Professor Takayasu Sakurai, Center for Collaborative Research, University of Tokyo, stated that power issues are becoming a real threat to the continued advance of Moore's Law. Leakage power in particular, he said, will rise dramatically in the next decade as power supplies shrink and can represent nearly one-half of power consumption in 90nm designs. He examined a number of steps being developed to control leakage, including power gating of designs, MTCMOS (Multi-Threshold CMOS) and other advanced process technologies, and several "power-aware" architectures under development in Japan.

Cradle Technologies' Amjad Qureshi, director of hardware engineering, described his experience developing a low-power design flow for a 0.13 micron, multi-million gate CT3600 MDSP (Multi-Core DSP) product with 24 processing cores. He recommends tackling power issues as early in the design cycle as possible and cited his company's use of Sequence's PowerTheater to architect the RTL code, resulting in a 30 percent reduction in power consumption. Cradle, a fabless semiconductor company providing MDSPs for video and imaging systems, is a leader in the fast-growth security and surveillance industry and prides itself on achieving low power consumption across its entire product family.

NEC Electronics' Kotaro Hachiya delivered a talk on power-noise verification and NEC Electronics' experience using Sequence's CoolTime for dynamic power grid analysis.

"Companies attending this seminar are in the three hottest semiconductor markets today: consumer, mobile, and high integration," said Sequence president and CEO, Vic Kulkarni. "Consumer applications

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are driven by cost, so they must produce the lowest cost, lowest power package possible. Mobile applications are driven by battery life, so power consumption must be reduced as much as possible. And high-integration devices in communications, computing, and networking are burning up from their own heat so they must look for ways to scale down power consumption. Semiconductor companies are investing heavily in these markets and are looking for partners that can help them manage power because it is critical to their success. The record attendance at this seminar proves just how important power is becoming in semiconductor design."

In addition to real-world case studies from invited speakers, the sponsors presented advances in EDA software and hardware specific to low-power design: Sequence addressed physical power optimization and power-grid integrity; Forte covered a power-driven methodology for ESL-to-netlist design flows; and CoWare discussed issues relating to ESL power management.


Spatial Announces Dates for Annual 3D Insiders' Summit 2006 12 December 2005

Spatial Corp., a Dassault Systemes company and provider of 3D components, announced the dates for their annual 3D Insiders' Summit, scheduled to take place at the Westin Westminster in Westminster, Colorado on May 22-23, 2006.

The conference is a venue for Spatial customers and prospects to gather and receive information about Spatial and the solutions available. The format for this year will once again consist of technical presentations about our 3D Modeling and 3D InterOp product lines presented by Spatial's development staff and product managers. In addition, focus groups and advisory boards will be conducted that allow attendees to provide detailed feedback about their experiences with Spatial solutions and enable Spatial staff to better understand customer needs.

"Last year we changed the focus of the event to be more technical and in-depth than ever before, making sure Spatial staff gave presentations to help educate and teach our customers the best ways to utilize our products," said Keith Mountain, CEO, Spatial. "This year we plan to continue this tradition and help you understand the benefits you will receive from integrating our Spatial solutions into your 3D applications."

Feedback from the 2005 event provides insight into attendee experiences:

"This was my first Summit, and my impression was fabulous. The talks were informative and the Spatial staff was very approachable. See you next year." said Rodney Korte, Research Engineer, Remcom, Inc.

"I liked this year's emphasis on technical content. The focus helped us to get new insights into some very powerful features of the (modeling) engine. Applying knowledge from the Summit we have seen a significant performance improvement in handling solid models in TurboCAD," said Mauritz Botha, Manager of Software Development, IMSI. "Access to the Spatial staff also allowed us to avoid dead ends


and to optimize our development time in adding new features. The upcoming releases of both our Mac and PC products include features that we discovered during these discussions."

To find out more, please visit:

http://www.spatial.com.

Discounts will be available for early registration.


Financial News PTC Completes Asia-Pacific Investigation; Results of Investigation Not Material to Financial Results 14 December 2005

PTC reported that it has completed its previously announced investigation regarding irregularities in sales orders in the Asia-Pacific region. PTC has concluded that the items identified in the investigation, which principally relate to PTC's 2001-2003 fiscal years, are not material to its reported results for prior and current periods and do not require restatement of those results. For more information, please refer to PTC's 2005 Annual Report on Form 10-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission today (available on PTC's investor web site at http://www.ptc.com/for/investors.htm).


Sequence Closes $5.3 Million Funding Round; Expands Into Fast-Growing International Markets, Boosts R&D To Maintain Low-Power Tech Lead 13 December 2005

Sequence Design, the EDA (Electronic Design Automation) technology provider in low-power design, has received its latest round of funding, securing $5.3 million in venture capital. Focus Ventures led the new round, along with First Plaza, GM Capital, IVP, Lake Street Capital, Menlo Ventures, and Sigma Partners. All have previously invested in Sequence.

The company added new members to its board of directors which is now comprised of Vic Kulkarni, Sequence president and CEO; Steve Bird, Focus Ventures; Adam A. Bablanian, president, CEO, and director, Virage Logic; James Picciano, former general manager, Microelectronics Division, IBM; and Jeff Barman, GM Capital (board observer).

Kulkarni explained that the additional funding will be used to further expand sales and support operations in fast-growing markets such as Japan, India, and Southeast Asia. "We are experiencing rapid growth in

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all regions for low-power design tools as the industry shifts to 90nm and 65nm designs," Kulkarni said. "As the designs grow smaller, the problems from power become much bigger, so we are in a very good position to provide the necessary technologies to help our customers succeed."

Kulkarni also said the company is increasing its R&D spending in the United States and India. Sequence recently introduced upgraded versions of PowerTheater, CoolTime, and CoolPower, its technologies for "power-aware" IC designers. These enhanced versions specifically deal with key design challenges such as leakage power, which significantly reduces battery life in portable devices such as cell phones; early analysis of power issues to speed the design process; and voltage drop that can lead to chip failures or deliberate and costly overdesign of chips.

Focus Ventures' Steve Bird said Sequence is well positioned to help its customers with low-power design, cited as today's number-one concern of IC designers. "Sequence began focusing on these issues way ahead of the pack," he said. "Consequently, they now have a considerable technology lead over the competition, and are poised for breakout success as the semiconductor industry moves to 90nm manufacturing and below."

"Credibility is earned in EDA, and Sequence certainly has it with more than 125 customers around the world, many of them among the biggest names in semiconductors," said Zachary Abrams, Lake Street Capital. "Vic (Kulkarni) is setting the course now for continued expansion and rapid growth, and we see lots of upside potential in all the markets where Sequence is focused."


Implementation Investments Alibre Design Gives FHC's Surgical Instruments an Edge: Affordable 3D Allows Small Firm to Undertake Big Projects

14 December 2005

Headquartered in Bowdoinham, Maine, the 70-employee FHC, Inc., produces devices that stimulate and map target areas of the brain for the treatment of Parkinson�s disease and other neurological disorders. Much like the company�s unique geographic locale, FHC has carved out an exclusive niche in a medical industry dominated by big firms by offering specialization to its clients. Neurosurgeons, hospitals, and neuroscientists look to FHC to provide microelectrodes and instrumentation with the same foursquare attention to detail as other New England handicrafts.

For its new mechanical design application, FHC chose Alibre® Inc.s 3D parametric solid modeler Alibre Design�, and found that it could give the big competition a run for its money for less cost, thanks to Alibres affordable pricing.

FHC uses mechanical modeling for not only the interior circuitry of its designs but also the plastic exteriors and control panels. The latest system under development at FHC is designed to incorporate both its electronics permitting surgeons to stimulate brain cells during functional neurosurgery as well as

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record and analyze the results and packaging for transportability in its design. Instead of traveling between facilities as a bulky deliverable through freight companies, the system can be conveyed as easily as rolling luggage. The equipment could be speedily positioned and assembled right next to the operating table, and afterwards simply collapsed into a compact unit capable of being rolled through airports and lifted into cabs.

Managers at FHC initially assumed the new portability was beyond the firms resources, and that an outsourced product design company would be tasked with coming up with a great idea for an aesthetic and multi-functional casing. FHC Electrical Engineer Mark Martin was assigned to find the subcontractor. �But I felt like I could come up with a great idea myself, and Alibre Design was very instrumental in that,� he says. �I was able to quickly develop a basic concept model, bring it to meetings and present my ideas and my line of thinking.�

Models created in Alibre Design enabled Martin to sell his own idea to his FHC co-workers to make them realize the transformable packaging aspect of the product could be kept in-house, thereby saving time and development costs. Images as JPEGs of different views of the conceptual 3D model promoted collaboration and solidified the look and features of the case. Finally, Martin could then proceed to develop the actual production assembly directly from the conceptual model.

�I couldn�t have done this project without Alibre Design. Without the design tools in Alibres product I don�t think I would have been able to visualize and come up with the ideas,� says Martin.

Alibre Design proved attractive with not only a $995 price tag, a mere fraction of other CAD packages, but also its full array of 3D parametric modeling tools that enabled more sophisticated FHC designs.

�I was happy to find Alibre Design because the software gives us all the functionality we need, but its also affordable for a small company,� concludes Martin. �I was also able to learn it with no special training. It has allowed us to stay competitive, and I bet our competition is going to see this new project and say, why didn�t we think of that? Alibre Design is a very powerful tool, and its been a great addition to our business.�

Alibre Inc. develops and markets Alibre Design�. One-fifth the cost of comparable software, Alibre Design delivers quick ROI, ease-of-use, rich functionality and unique real-time support, and is enabling small and medium-sized businesses and workgroups to put 3D CAD on every engineers desk, similar to utilities like Word or Excel. Alibre also delivers Alibre Design Xpress, the industry�s only true 3D parametric modeler available free of charge. Alibre Design is available in eleven languages and distributed worldwide. Founded in 1997, Alibre Inc. is privately funded and based in Richardson, Texas. For more details, contact 877-525-4273, [email protected], or visit http://www.alibre.com.

FHC designs, manufactures, and internationally markets quality products for neuroscience and neurosurgical research. FHC customers include scientific researchers at major universities, medical schools, hospitals, government research institutions, and private laboratories located at pharmaceutical, biotechnology and major technology-based companies around the world. Neurosurgeons use FHC equipment for intraoperative microelectrode recording and stimulation to map the electrical activity of human brain and to precisely locate dysfunctional areas prior to treatment. FHC has established microTargeting® as its trademark for this technology, which recently has found increasing use in the


http://www.alibre.com/


treatment symptoms of Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders. FHC products are also used for microneurography, the monitoring of human peripheral nerve activity as it relates to neuromuscular function. The 70-employee firm is headquartered in Bowdoinham, 35 miles north of Portland, Maine. For more information about the company and its products, please visit http://www.fh-co.com.


APC Uses Airflow Simulation to Solve Data Center Cooling Problem December 2005

American Power Conversion (APC) helped diagnose and solve a potential overheating problem in a customer�s new data center by using simulation to evaluate alternative designs prior to installing the equipment. The simulation showed that the customer�s original design would result in overheating if a single computer room air conditioner (CRAC) failed for even a short period of time. �We used Flomerics� Flovent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software to identify the problem, evaluate its root cause, and develop a new design that can withstand loss of any one single piece of equipment,� said Ben Steinberg, senior applications engineer for APC.

Steinberg used Flovent to model the geometry of the data center and thermal and airflow characteristics of the servers and cooling units. �Flovent is designed specifically for modeling heating and cooling applications so it is both easier to use and more powerful than general purpose CFD codes when evaluating data center cooling,� Steinberg said. �Flovent also has a team of support engineers that provide excellent support because they have a very good understanding of data center cooling issues.�

Like most new data centers, this one made extensive use of blade servers, which greatly increase the amount of computing power that can be packed into a given amount of space but at the same time generate much more heat than traditional servers. The customer�s initial design positioned the equipment in three rows with one CRAC in each row. Steinberg ran a steady state simulation with all CRAC units operating and then removed the CRACs from the model one after another and reran the simulation. The results showed that when one particular CRAC unit was removed, temperatures quickly reached the unacceptable 90°F level.

Steinberg suggested adding a fourth row of equipment with a fourth CRAC unit. He pointed out that the fourth row would provide each hot aisle with one CRAC unit on each side of the aisle, providing redundancy in case one unit failed. In order to confirm this assumption, Steinberg modified the Flovent model to add the fourth row of equipment and the fourth CRAC. The results showed that regardless of which CRAC was removed, temperatures remained at safe levels of between 75°F and 80°F throughout the data center. Steinberg showed these results to the owner and the owner made the decision to go with the new design and purchase the four CRACs from APC.

�It would have been extremely costly to install the equipment in the data center, run tests, and then discover that it would not properly cool the servers in the event of an equipment failure,� Steinberg said. �But it would have been far more costly for the customer to have its data center go down because of cooling problems. This helps explain why we run simulations for many of our proposals. Simulation

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provides a fast, relatively inexpensive, and accurate method of evaluating data center cooling performance without going to the time and expense required to actually install and test the equipment.�


Clark Nexsen Standardizes On GiveMePower Mobile and Wireless Field Solution After Completing US Navy Base Project 250% Faster 12 December 2005

GiveMePower Corporation announced that Clark Nexsen, a architecture, engineering, planning and interior design firm, has standardized on GiveMePower's new PowerCAD® SiteMaster� 2 laser-based mobile and wireless building surveying solution, after using the system to reduce 'as-built' floor plan creation time by 50%, increase accuracy to 100% and to improve overall job productivity by 250% on the US Navy's 2.1 million square foot Dam Neck Annex naval air station project in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

"We didn't expect to see the first drawing until more than a month after Clark Nexsen delivered the entire project," said Michael Willette, Project Manager, GIS Division, Navy Public Works in Norfolk, VA. "By deploying leading-edge technologies like PowerCAD SiteMaster, they saved the US Navy and US taxpayers a lot of time and money."

Chronicled in a new case study, Clark Nexsen was awarded the US Navy contract to verify existing floor plans and collect new data for 2.1 million square feet at Dam Neck Annex in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Dam Neck is part of Naval Air Station (NAS) Oceana, one of the largest and most advanced air stations in the world, comprising 6,820 acres (including Dam Neck Annex). NAS Oceana's primary mission is to train and deploy the Navy's fighter/attack squadron�the F-14 Tomcats and the F/A-18 Hornets.

With compressed timelines and a long history of using the latest technology to improve customer service, Clark Nexsen took an innovative approach to streamlining the data collection and as-built floor plan creation process by harnessing GiveMePower's new PowerCAD® SiteMaster� 2 "Point-Shoot-Done" laser-based mobile and wireless field solution.

Replacing traditional tape measure and paper methods with PowerCAD SiteMaster 2 on Windows® XP tablet PCs and Leica DISTO� Plus Bluetooth® handheld lasers, Clark Nexsen crews and US Navy supervisors were able to collaboratively assess more than 2 million square feet of building space and create nearly 400,000 square feet of new 'as-built' floor plans for the Dam Neck Annex site more than a month ahead of schedule.

"SiteMaster let us create highly-detailed and amazingly-precise floor plans on site, in real-time and in AutoCAD-ready format 2-3 times faster than we could have using traditional measuring tape and paper methods. Frankly, it's hard to imagine doing building surveys any other way," claims Macklin Smith, AIA, Project Manager for Clark Nexsen.


By simply pointing the wireless handheld lasers, precise measurements within a tolerance of +/-0.1 inch over 650 feet were instantly transferred to PowerCAD SiteMaster where architecturally-rich 'as-built' floor plans, complete with "intelligent" walls, windows, doors, openings, areas, symbols and extended inspection details such as digital photos were added to the drawings in real-time on the tablet PCs.

By using PowerCAD SiteMaster on tablet PCs, Clark Nexsen crews were able to automatically create full-blown as-built AutoCAD drawings on the fly, with laser-generated data completely eliminating transposition errors by providing instant verification of results.

"We are absolutely satisfied with the technology and the amount of quality work that Clark Nexsen was able to deliver in such a short time," says Willette.

Smith concludes, "PowerCAD SiteMaster is our standard field system now. It makes everyone's life so much easier, it integrates with our existing software systems and the training and support offered by GiveMePower was excellent."

The entire case study can be read at http://www.givemepower.com/pdf/Clark_Nexsen_US_Navy_Case_Study_final.pdf.

PowerCAD SiteMaster 2 Product Info

Proven to increase productivity by up to 1,000% on jobs for McDonald's, Cartier, Deutsche Telecom and the US Navy, PowerCAD SiteMaster is revolutionizing the speed and ease by which new or 'as-built' floor plans, area calculations and inspection drawings are created for the design, maintenance, management and re-construction of buildings.

Primary users benefiting from the use of SiteMaster includes architects, appraisers, contractors, estimators, facility managers, inspectors, owners, planners and real estate brokers; as well as public officials who can now computerize the creation of up-to-date digital building plans for instant access by first responders and other public safety and security officials.

PowerCAD SiteMaster is part of GiveMePower's family of CAD Anywhere� 2D and 3D design, viewing and mobile/wireless collaboration solutions�each designed to save time and money in the office, in the field or on the shop floor. Other users benefiting from GiveMePower technologies include; AT&T, General Dynamics, Maytag, Penn State University, the United States Postal Service and other branches of the U.S. Military.

For more information on PowerCAD field and office software solutions, including specially bundled PowerCAD SiteMaster 2 hardware and software configurations, contact a GiveMePower Premier Solutions Provider, call 1-888-97-POWER or visit http://www.givemepower.com/products/powercad_sm.cfm.

Clark Nexsen is a full-service architectural, engineering, planning, and interior design firm headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia with branch offices located in Alexandria, and Roanoke Virginia and Charlotte, and Raleigh North Carolina. Clark Nexsen currently has a staff of over 300. With 85 years of experience, the

http://www.givemepower.com/pdf/Clark_Nexsen_US_Navy_Case_Study_final.pdf

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firm has strived for maximum performance, and works to shape the future worldwide with a focus that remains constant in efforts to make projects work for their clients. For more information, visit http://www.clarknexsen.com.


Distell Helps Ensure Compliance with Regulations Using Open Text’s Livelink ECM 14 December 2005

Open Text� Corporation said today that Distell Group Limited, a premier producer and marketer of fine wines and spirits, has successfully completed the first phase of its intended enterprise-wide Livelink ECM implementation. The system is designed to help ensure compliance with ISO and International Food Standards (IFS) regulations. The deployment has already garnered significant benefits for both end-users and the company.

Driven by content growth, the need for enterprise wide content availability and improved process automation, as well as evolving compliance regulations, Distell embarked on an ambitious initiative to deliver a complete ECM solution to all corners of its enterprise. Livelink ECM was chosen to allow staff easy access to unstructured content, improve productivity through effective content categorization and management, and to help provide good corporate governance practices for information assets.

�For most companies, the way information is managed has a major impact on critical processes and productivity,� said John Kirkham, Executive Vice President of Global Sales at Open Text. �With its new ECM solution Distell is addressing both operational and compliance challenges head on and demonstrating how enterprise-wide ECM can transform the way companies manage information.�

Livelink ECM is used for the company�s enterprise-wide Quality Management System, which helps ensure compliance with ISO 9001 quality systems compliance; ISO 14001 environmental impact compliance; British Retail Consortium (BRC) compliance; and International Food Standards (IFS). Every time a regulated document is updated, added or deleted, the Quality Management System helps ensure that the appropriate personnel are notified via Microsoft Outlook of the document update. This was achieved by integrating the document distribution list for each document with the position numbers in the ERP Human Resources module.

Various business processes have been made more efficient by managing and tracking them through Livelink ECM. Quality Management audit findings are registered and managed in Livelink ECM until resolved. Similarly, innovative ideas generated by Mission Directed work Teams (MDT�s) in the production environment are registered, managed and tracked through a Livelink ECM workflow solution.

Integration of Livelink ECM with Distell�s ERP system has streamlined business processes in the Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and Product Packaging Specifications departments. Technical material specifications stored in Livelink ECM can be accessed either using a Livelink ECM report or directly from the ERP materials master, which makes it easy and convenient for staff to retrieve product information. The use of the solution within the Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable environments allows any Distell employee who has ERP access to display invoices and supporting documentation.

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Proof of delivery documentation can be faxed to a customer from within the ERP system instead of having to retrieve the document from the file room first, then copying and faxing it, which has improved Distell customer service. ERP data archiving supported by Livelink ECM is also used to control data growth in Distell�s ERP system.

In the future, Distell�s system will support information lifecycle management from data creation to archiving and disposal. Content-rich business processes at Distell will be ECM enabled, with content managed over a lifecycle � including the creation, capture, management, storage, archiving, distribution, search, and disposal of information.

The eventual ECM solution at Distell will also include Microsoft Exchange archiving which enables easy administration and management of emails stored on a Microsoft Exchange server. The project deployment is scheduled to begin in February 2006.

Distell Group Limited is South Africa�s premier producer and marketer of fine wines, spirits and Ready-to-drinks (RTDs). Distell employs over 4 000 people and has an annual turnover in excess of US$800 million. Distell�s activities range from grape farming, winemaking, distilling, maturation, production, distribution to the international marketing of trademarks. The company�s head office is located in Stellenbosch, South Africa. For more information on Distell, go to: http://www.distell.co.za.


EMC Automates, Accelerates and Improves Compliance of Business Processes at York International

15 December 2005

EMC Corporation announced that York International, a leading manufacturer of heating, ventilation, air- conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) systems worldwide, deployed the EMC® Documentum® enterprise content management (ECM) platform with the Adobe Intelligent Document platform. The integrated solution has replaced inefficient paper workflows and ad hoc HTML forms applications for internal employee-related processes with automated, intelligent forms that ensure more consistent business processes worldwide and provide increased security and reliability to meet regulatory requirements. As a result, York has reduced time, costs and errors associated with the manual process of creating and tracking custom applications. The results achieved were recently recognized by InfoWorld, a leading IT publication, which honored York with its annual "InfoWorld 100 Award" as one of the best uses of technology to meet business goals.

Tim Fives, Manager, Global Content Solutions at York International said, "The Documentum-Adobe intelligent forms solution has enabled us to slash the average processing time of our authorization for expenditure (AFE) forms from 160 hours to two hours and reduce the time to set up systems access for new employees from an average 30 days to four days. We could not have realized these efficiency gains without the tight integration between EMC Documentum and the Adobe Intelligent Document Platform. The InfoWorld 100 award is an added bonus to the overall success we achieved with EMC's support."

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Prior to the implementation, York struggled with managing disparate processes associated with various paper-based and online employee forms that needed to be authorized and approved by management. Fives explained, "The inability to standardize on custom applications made it very difficult to track business processes and keep up with regulatory requirements. It also drove up operating costs substantially."

The Documentum platform provided built-in security, versioning, workflow and lifecycle management, from creation to archiving, of all types of unstructured content across the enterprise. The Adobe Intelligent Document Platform enabled York to build intuitive XML-based forms to help employees enter accurate information and access rights and routing instructions. When a form is submitted, it is saved to the Documentum repository, and its fields are automatically mapped to Documentum object attributes to drive workflow processes such as routing information to appropriate managers and departments for review and approval.

Fives added, "The Documentum-Adobe solution also helped us gain control over our global business processes. Our central IT department can now help regional offices develop intelligent electronic forms processes to streamline business operations in their areas. The overall reliability of information has increased as well because the online workflow replaces paper documents that previously could be misplaced or sit idle on employee desktops."

InfoWorld provides specialized IT coverage for the CTO, senior-most company executives who are deeply steeped in technology expertise and experience. InfoWorld Media Group is a division of IDG.

The InfoWorld 100 Awards celebrate enterprise IT projects that have made the best use of technology to meet business goals. Entries were judged on innovation and project complexity, as well as stumbling blocks that were overcome to achieve success.


eSilicon Accelerates Design Cycles with Novas Verdi Debug System 12 December 2005

Novas Software, Inc. announced that eSilicon Corporation, a leading fabless supplier of custom integrated circuits (IC), has adopted the Novas Verdi� Automated Debug System as an integral component of its sophisticated electronic design automation (EDA) flow. The advanced debugging solution has been successfully deployed by eSilicon® design centers to accelerate the development cycles of multiple IC designs.

eSilicon typically receives design specifications from its customers and manages the implementation flow, starting at either the gate or register transfer level (RTL) and seeing the design through Design for Test (DFT), place-and-route and manufacturing. Using the intuitive visualization and analysis capabilities of the Verdi system, eSilicon engineers are able to navigate the details of complex DFT architectures, and gain in-depth insight into the design intent. This helps to keep debug iterations short and improves the overall productivity of eSilicon's distributed engineering teams.

http://www.novas.com/


"The nature of our business requires that we cycle projects through our design centers as quickly as possible. These complex chips often come to us containing design elements from several sources and with multiple IP cores. We then add high fault coverage DFT logic that touches every IO, memory, and flip-flop in the design," said Joe Reynick, director of DFT and EDA solutions at eSilicon. "Novas' Verdi system provides the ability to quickly trace and analyze the causes of complex DFT issues, saving valuable time and effort. The end result is higher quality designs for hand-off to manufacturing. Since we use tools from a variety of EDA suppliers, we also appreciate how easily the Novas debug platform integrates into our state-of-the-art design flows."

eSilicon, http://www.esilicon.com, has chip design and manufacturing teams around the world performing custom design work for a wide range of electronics companies, involving products such as high-volume MP3 players, home gateways, complex storage networks, and high-speed communications devices.

"eSilicon's design teams face many of the most difficult challenges in IC design today. The fact that their business model is based on working with chip specifications that are not their own further underscores the importance of being able to comprehend unfamiliar designs," said Scott Sandler, president and CEO at Novas. "We are pleased to see eSilicon's engineers utilize Verdi's highly automated debug approach to get high quality chip designs into manufacturing faster for their impressive portfolio of customers."

Verdi is a complete mixed-language debug system that automates the process of understanding how complex IC and system-on-chip designs work or why they do not. It provides a universal debug platform and common interface for accessing all the design knowledge and analysis engines needed throughout the verification tool and methodology flow. Engineers can analyze cause-and-effect relationships and visualize design behavior over time to better understand and accelerate debug of third-party intellectual property, legacy design code and new or unfamiliar components.


Freiburg, Germany Regional School District Purchases 1,000 Licenses of SolidWorks Education Edition

12 December 2005

More than 3,200 vocational students in the Freiburg, Germany regional school district will get a head start on their engineering and machining careers by learning 3D mechanical design fundamentals with SolidWorks® software. The Freiburg district purchased 1,000 licenses of SolidWorks Education Edition software for instructional use in 30 vocational colleges to help students learn how to design and machine everything from watches to complex robots.

All of the institutions in the Freiburg school district teach practice-oriented technical and electronics skills, and product design and development play a crucial role in a complete vocational education. The school district replaced 2D AutoCAD® software with 3D SolidWorks to give students a competitive advantage after graduation.

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"Students have to carry out entire projects from planning through production to final presentation," said Jurgen Kubas, senior lecturer for mechanics at Schwenningen State College for Precision Engineering. "We switched to SolidWorks because it is becoming an industry standard, and because it is easier to use and better transfers data to computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) applications than our previous software."

The school district also purchased SolidWorks Certified CAM Product SolidCAM, which provides the tool path between product design and manufacturing. Together, the two products give students valuable real-world experience managing product development from concept to production.

"After extensively testing various 3D CAD and CAM software systems, we standardized on SolidWorks and SolidCAM because they deliver a broad range of functions and are widely adopted in the industry," said Elmar Moschle, consultant for manufacturing technology at the Freiburg school district. "Our future engineers are now able to comprehend the basics of mechanical design and manufacturing in a short period of time."

Using SolidWorks, students learn to design both single components and whole assemblies as they work on practical projects. They discover how to create life-like images of their products for their final presentations and learn how these images could benefit marketing and design collaboration. They also learn how to generate accurate bills of materials that aid in manufacturing and assembly.

"Technical education that focuses on 3D CAD and CAM systems results in better job prospects for the graduates in precision mechanics, electronics or mechanical engineering, and the automotive industry," said SolidWorks European Business Manager for Education Lutz Bettels. "The software systems' ease-of-use allows students to quickly understand engineering and machining fundamentals so they can begin developing the skills they'll need after graduation."

The Freiburg regional school district relies on authorized SolidWorks reseller SolidPro Informationssysteme GmbH for ongoing software training, implementation, and support.

The regional school district of Freiburg, Germany was founded in 1900 and embraces five different school types for engineering and machining education. The school district currently has 3,200 vocational students at its 30 colleges. At each school, the focus is set on teaching practice-oriented technical and electronics skills. For more information, visit http://www.rp-freiburg.de.

SolidPro Informationssysteme GmbH is situated in Langenau and offers professional and individual CAD solutions. With extensive industry experience, SolidPro is an authorized SolidWorks reseller that supports its customers throughout the whole development process, including construction and simulation, production, and presentation of products on the Internet. For more information, visit the Web site (http://www.solidpro.de).


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Multin Hittech BV Powers Product Development With CoCreate's Collaboration Tool 24 November 2005

CoCreate Software announced that Multin Hittech BV has added OneSpace.net to its portfolio of tools from CoCreate.

Multin, a design house based in Delft/ The Netherlands, develops and manufactures mechanical and electronic products for an international customer base.

"Our products are complex," says Oscar de Boer, Engineering Manager at Multin Hittech BV. "Add international customers and there's a risk that product development can turn to chaos."

So the company makes sure it works with tools and processes that offer excellent efficiency and communication. In short, Multin Hittech is adopting what CoCreate calls Lean Product Development�the developer's equivalent of lean manufacturing.

"We now hold online design reviews," says de Boer. "We upload models during these reviews, and then share our screens using OneSpace.net so project members and customers anywhere can view models and other data online. We discuss, inspect, and change models during our design reviews and quickly make decisions. As a result, product development progresses quickly."

Many collaborative software packages offer application sharing. But these often bog down so much under the weight of heavy graphic files used by engineers that the benefits of online collaboration are lost. CoCreate built OneSpace.net specifically for engineers so they can share large graphic files.

"We benchmarked other collaboration tools, but only OneSpace.net offered the performance and convenience we needed," says de Boer.

The company uses the software by connecting to CoCreate's servers. The "hosted system" approach to using software offers Multin Hittech a cost-effective alternative to owning licenses. It makes installation and deployment painless for customers.

Plus, Multin Hittech customers use the service to convert CAD files, from various CAD formats, in order to work on one common assembly within OneSpace.net. And all for a fraction of the cost of a full OneSpace.net license. "That feature alone makes OneSpace.net appealing to any customer buying just a few licenses," said Michiel van Bergen, Account Manager at CAD Services, who sold OneSpace.net to Multin Hittech.

Besides OneSpace.net, Multin Hittech actively works with other CoCreate products. Namely, OneSpace Designer Modeling and its Surfacing module, which it uses to create topological trimmed surfaces and complete topological solid models. "Designing in 3D creates benefits in areas that aren't immediately apparent," says de Boer. "We annotate our 3D model with information about the design. Then, others don't have to re-enter that data when the model goes to manufacturing or other downstream entities."


"As a result," de Boer says, "costs stay low."

"With CoCreate and OneSpace.net, we design great products within very reasonable costs and timeframes," says de Boer.

For further information, please visit http://www.cocreate.com.

CAD Services Nederland B.V. is a dedicated CoCreate Value Added Partner with over fifteen years of experience. CAD Services focuses on implementing CoCreate software-based solutions that improve the engineering processes of companies seeking to provide flexible, customer-specific solutions, with a strong focus on standardization and modularization. The CAD Services SMART Engineering solution, combined with their efficient Best Practices workgroup implementation model, provides a unique solution for success.

Visit CAD Services on the Internet at http://www.cadservices.nl.


Nissan Selects UGS’ NX Software as New Standard for Its Next-generation Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) System to Design and Build New Vehicles 15 December 2005

UGS Corp. announced Nissan selected UGS to be the provider of the new global PLM system that Nissan and Nissan affiliates will deploy to design and build its next generation of vehicles.

UGS expects the selection to represent its largest win in 2005. Nissan will use UGS� NX® CAD software to digitally design its vehicles on a global basis and UGS� Teamcenter® collaborative Product Development Management (cPDM) software to digitally manage product data and enable digital prototyping for all Nissan vehicles across the world. The company will deploy the software as part of a fully integrated, common R&D infrastructure for use inside Nissan.

�Nissan is one of the world�s most innovative and successful companies, and UGS is proud to help strengthen its strong automotive industry leadership by providing the new technology foundation for its innovative, knowledge-enabled vehicle development process,� said Tony Affuso, chairman, CEO and president of UGS. �No other PLM company combines superior technology, ability to scale the product across multiple global sites and proven strength in supporting large global customers, and our expert UGS delivery team is gearing-up to deploy its unmatched track record for customer success on Nissan�s behalf.�

“Nissan Value-Up”

The selection of UGS follows a multi-year process during which Nissan evaluated CAD systems for the purposes of identifying a standard PLM partner for its three-year business plan �Value-Up,� which began in April 2005. Under �Value-Up,� Nissan has committed to maintain a top level of operating profit

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margin among global automakers for each of the three years of the plan; achieve global sales of 4.2 million units, measured in fiscal year 2008 and achieve a 20% return on invested capital on average over the course of the plan, excluding cash on hand.

UGS Leadership in PLM and Automotive

UGS� selection by Nissan strengthens the company�s leadership position in providing global CAD and cPDM solutions to manufacturers across industries, including automotive:

· UGS is the world�s leading supplier of combined CAD/cPDM solutions.

· UGS is the CAD market leader in China and emerging Asian markets.

· Among companies with more than 1,000 PDM seats, 90 percent are using UGS' solutions.

· UGS is the leading vendor of product development solutions in automotive OEMs with 200,000 seats.


Packaging System Innovator Saves Time, Increases Quality with RuleStream 13 December 2005

RuleStream Corporation announced that Omega Design is using RuleStream to streamline engineering processes, increase accuracy and improve customer response time on its bottle handling machines.

Omega Design, a recognized innovator of high quality container handling and packaging equipment systems, supplies job change parts that are unique for each bottle to be handled. With engineering lead times taking 2-4 weeks and increasing the workload of their engineers, they turned to DesignPoint Solutions, a RuleStream reseller, who recommended a RuleStream-based solution to reduce engineering times and speed customer response.

Utilizing RuleStream's simple tools designed for the engineers to easily capture rules, DesignPoint was able to deliver a complete application in just 21 days. The RuleStream solution automates the routine design processes, reducing design time from weeks to minutes and allowing engineers at Omega Design to focus more of their time on engineering innovation. As a result of the RuleStream implementation, all the new designs are created based on a centralized set of rules, so they are more consistent and accurate. Customer response time has been dramatically improved.

"We've seen a rapid time-to-benefit from our RuleStream implementation, with dramatic improvement in our engineering process time," said Glenn Siegele, president of Omega Design. "We look forward to pushing the design process for smaller custom job changes up to our sales staff, freeing up our


engineering team so they can focus more on the high-margin, innovative solutions our company is known for. We also plan to expand the current application and automate additional product lines."

"Omega Design is a great example of a manufacturer who is using RuleStream to make processing custom parts as easy as standard ones," said Robert Nierman, CEO of RuleStream. "By automating the reuse of proven design knowledge, manufacturers can improve product quality and increase customer satisfaction by streamlining their engineering processes."

Omega Design Corporation

Omega Design Corporation designs, manufactures, and services a full range of packaging solutions. Principal products include plastic bottle unscramblers, shrinkbundlers, stretchbanders, , case packers, secondary orienters, canister and pouch desiccant feeders, and specialty equipment. Their products are utilized extensively in the Pharmaceutical, Personal Health Care, Cosmetic, Food, Beverage, Dairy and Chemical Industries.

DesignPoint Solutions, Inc.

DesignPoint Solutions, Inc., is a provider of design, engineering and manufacturing solutions, including RuleStream, SolidWorks, COSMOSWorks, and SolidCAM. Recognized in 2004 as the fastest growing provider of SolidWorks in the Mid-Atlantic region, DesignPoint attributes their success to one, simple principle: develop a complete understanding of the needs of its customers, and help them select and implement solutions to reduce their time to market, cut costs, and increase sales. For more information, please visit http://www.design-point.com.


Tier-1 Automotive Supplier Albert Weber Standardizes on UGS Tecnomatix Solutions to Streamline Manufacturing Processes

14 December 2005

UGS Corp. announced German-based Albert Weber GmbH, a division of Weber Automotive, has standardized on Tecnomatix� software, UGS� digital manufacturing solution, to digitally transform production planning, cost estimation, time calculation and digital simulation.

Albert Weber, a Tier-1 supplier to all major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) globally, will use UGS� Tecnomatix to streamline the machining-processes of highly complicated powertrain components such as engine blocks, cylinder heads, crankshafts, housings and connecting rods. The company is headquartered in Markdorf; with additional locations in Neuenbürg, Germany; Esztergom, Hungaria and Charleston, S.C.

As part of Project 2010, a company-wide initiative to put Albert Weber ahead of the competition in the next five years, Albert Weber conducted a six-month evaluation for an integrated software solution to support concept planning and implementation of new manufacturing processes, especially planning, cost

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and time estimation and digital simulation. After an intensive evaluation process, the company selected UGS for the combined implementation of eM-Planner, eM-Plant, eM-Machining and eM-RealNC from the UGS Tecnomatix portfolio of products.

�As a Tier-1 automotive supplier our goal is to consistently enhance the quality of production planning, shorten ramp-up times, standardize our manufacturing methods and boost productivity,� said Christian Weber, CEO of Albert Weber GmbH. �We selected UGS Tecnomatix solution because it is the only comprehensive solution that offers everything we need to support us today and to put us years ahead of our competitors.�

�UGS Tecnomatix portfolio of products allows a medium-sized technology leader like Albert Weber to tie processes and simulation results to their respective OEMs, enhancing productivity and providing a competitive advantage,� said Markus V. Hoenschel, senior sales engineer and reseller manager Tecnomatix, UGS.

Tecnomatix is the digital manufacturing brand of UGS. Digital manufacturing is a critical component of product lifecycle management, helping businesses increase profitability by improving the way products are built. More than 5,000 companies worldwide � including BMW, Lockheed-Martin and Anheuser-Busch � are using Tecnomatix to reduce operating costs, accelerate product introductions and shorten time-to-volume while maintaining high levels of product and process quality. Tecnomatix leverages UGS� Open Manufacturing Backbone� software, which facilitates integration with other UGS� solutions, as well as third-party systems. For more information visit: http://www.ugs.com/tecnomatix.

Weber Automotive is comprised of three medium sized automotive suppliers based in Markdorf, Germany. Albert Weber GmbH, founded 1969, specializes in manufacturing powertrain components such as engine blocks, cylinder heads, conrods, crankshafts and housings. Weber Motor AG is OEM of 2 and 4 cylinder 4-stroke fuel engines for automotive, all-terrain-vehicle, motorcycle, marine and ultra light airplane applications. Weber Fibertech starts production of hard mansonite automotive components in 2006. Approximately 520 employees based at two German sites, Markdorf and Neunbürg, Esztergom in Hungaria and Charleston, S.C. work for the medium sized Tier-1 supplier of leading automotive OEM. For more information please visit http://www.weber-automotive.com.


United States Air Force Streamlines Vehicle Fleet Management With MRO Software 12 December 2005

MRO Software Inc. announced that its Maximo asset and service management solution has been purchased as part of the U.S. Air Force Logistics Integrated Asset Management System (LIAMS) initiative. The transaction was closed in MRO Software's fourth fiscal quarter, ended September 30, 2005.

Using Maximo, LIAMS will provide a modern asset management platform that will allow the Air Force to manage, maintain and operate its fleet of more than 80,000 government-owned and leased vehicles. The new, consolidated, Web-based application will operate from within the Global Combat Support

http://www.ugs.com/tecnomatix

http://www.weber-automotive.com/


System- Air Force Integration Framework (GCSS-AF IF) and will replace five legacy systems, and one modernized system, which previously were used to manage these critical assets.

LIAMS will enable the Air Force to provide improved vehicle maintenance and operations through real-time cost and asset visibility, optimized performance and operational capability and increased warranty recovery. The solution will allow predictive, versus reactive maintenance, and improved predictability and forecasting. In addition, by eliminating the cost to support and maintain six stove-piped systems, LIAMS will help the Air Force significantly decrease sustainment costs associated with their fleet management solutions.

LIAMS is the result of a joint effort by "Team MRO" which is comprised of BearingPoint, Inc., as the prime contractor and team members Anteon, CACI International and MRO Software. All four companies offer service support, while MRO Software is the sole software provider for this initiative. The Air Force made this acquisition through the LIAMS Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) that supports the efforts of the Development and Fielding Systems Group (DFSG) and is managed by the Operations and Sustainment Support Group (OSSG).

"As a long-time provider of solutions to the government and public sector we recognize that our solutions need to provide demonstrable ROI," said Mark Gruzin, director, federal sector at MRO Software. "Implementing Maximo through the LIAMS program will enable the Air Force to have complete asset visibility for its vehicles. As a result, the Air Force is able to decrease costs associated with overall vehicle management, and improve readiness decisions."

A pilot implementation, at Bolling AFB, was completed in March 2005 and continues to operate. The Air Force and Team MRO are engaged in planning efforts for the world-wide rollout to 234 locations over the next 2-3 years. The initial Maximo purchase will accommodate the planned roll out with support for 15,000 users within the vehicle management community.

Maximo Enterprise Suite, MRO Software�s flagship solution, is delivered on a web-architected platform and increases productivity, optimizes asset performance, and service levels, reduces costs and enables asset-related sourcing and procurement across the entire spectrum of strategic assets.

The Company's asset management solutions allow customers to manage the complete lifecycle of strategic assets including: planning, procurement, deployment, tracking, maintenance and retirement. Using MRO Software's solutions, customers improve production reliability, labor efficiency, material optimization, software license compliance, lease management, warranty and service management across the asset base. Additional information on MRO Software can be found at http://www.mro.com.


University of Central Lancashire Teaches Product Design and Engineering Skills with SolidWorks Education Edition

14 December 2005

http://www.mro.com/


U.K. institution uses 100 licenses of SolidWorks 3D mechanical design and COSMOS design analysis software to prepare students for careers at global enterprises

The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) is using 100 licenses of SolidWorks® Education Edition software to teach engineering and product design fundamentals to students preparing for their professional careers. SolidWorks 3D mechanical design and COSMOS® design analysis software have the intuitive interface to help students quickly grasp the software, so they can spend more time learning how to design innovative products.

With more than 35,000 graduate and undergraduate students, UCLan is one of the U.K.'s largest universities. It originally purchased 30 licenses of SolidWorks software in 1999, but recently increased its total number to 100 to accommodate growing student and staff demand. Its graduates find rewarding jobs at global manufacturers as well as interesting consulting positions in the film, media, and video gaming industries.

"SolidWorks' short learning curve, ease of use, and friendly user interface actually encourage students to plunge into product engineering and design, rather than scare them off with complex screens," said Graham Hill, senior technician and professor of UCLan's Department of Design. "SolidWorks is a powerful educational tool because students can make sense of it, yet it has all of the functionality they need to experience real-world product development."

The bachelor's degree program at UCLan's Department of Design focuses on the aesthetics of product design as well as functionality. SolidWorks provides the sharp surfacing features that expose students to the challenges of designing smooth curves and odd angles for enclosures that must fit exactly with internal components. UCLan's Faculty of Design and Technology teaches fundamental engineering and design, using both SolidWorks and COSMOSWorks® to give students a firsthand look at integrated design and analysis so they understand the steps to bring a project from design to manufacture.

Second- and third-year students in both departments apply the skills they've learned in the first year to designing everything from sports sunglasses to toothbrushes and forklifts. SolidWorks' physical simulation tool helps them quickly identify and fix part interference, while PhotoWorks� shows them how to create life-like images of the projects they've designed.

"University of Central Lancashire product design graduates have gone on to jobs with global companies such as Kenwood, Hasbro, and Philips," said SolidWorks Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Rainer Gawlick. "SolidWorks and COSMOSWorks have given them the skills and the courage to tackle tough challenges, and the drive to find the most innovative design approach."

UCLan relies on SolidWorks reseller NT CADCAM for ongoing software training, implementation, and support.

With more than 35,000 students, UCLan is the sixth largest university in the U.K., with campuses in Preston, Penrith, and Carlisle. The Faculty of Design and Technology offers courses in product design, 3D design with digital modeling, computing, engineering, and much more. For further information please visit http://www.uclan.ac.uk/design.

http://www.uclan.ac.uk/design


Launched in the UK in 1996, NT CADCAM is one of the leading suppliers of the design software solution SolidWorks. NT CADCAM offers designers and manufacturers complete design and engineering solutions built around SolidWorks. The company also provides customers with comprehensive product data management (PDM), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), finite element analysis (FEA), and knowledge-based engineering (KBE) solutions. For more information, visit http://www.ntcadcam.co.uk.


Industry-Wide News OSCI Applauds Approval of IEEE SystemC™ Standard; Fully Accredited Standard Met With Worldwide Industry Support

12 December 2005

The Open SystemC Initiative (OSCI), an independent non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and advancing SystemC� as an industry standard language for electronic system-level design, announced that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE) has approved the SystemC language as IEEE Std. 1666� -2005, "Standard SystemC Language Reference Manual." Based upon the SystemC 2.1 Language Reference Manual developed by OSCI and delivered to the IEEE earlier this year, the fully accredited standard provides a precise and complete specification of the SystemC class library. Implementations can be developed with reference to the IEEE 1666 SystemC standard alone, assuring users that their design is built upon a stable and robust standard.

"Since submitting the LRM to the IEEE SystemC Standardization Working Group in April, we have been impressed with the speed of the balloting process for adoption of the standard," said Alain Clouard, chairman of OSCI. "With a foundation built upon the cooperative effort that leverages the combined technology and user experience of a broad group of companies, the industry now has a well defined standard that establishes a new baseline for support of virtually all system modeling and verification."

IEEE 1666 gives an unambiguous definition of what is required to accurately implement SystemC and provides the foundation for the next generation of tools to be built around the standard. With quick approval of the IEEE Corporate Standards Program in just eight months, the standard is being met with worldwide adoption and industry support.

Leading companies in the IP, EDA, semiconductor, electronic systems, and embedded software industries currently use SystemC to provide a rich environment for system-level design and verification. Organizations around the world are using SystemC in a wide range of projects in numerous application areas. Many semiconductor and systems companies in the SystemC community have participated at public events where they described their use of SystemC. These companies include ARM Ltd., IBM, Intel Corporation, Infineon, The Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA), Motorola, NEC Electronics Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, Sandia National Laboratories, Sony Corporation, Starkey Labs Inc., STMicroelectronics, and Qualcomm Inc. among others. Information on these events can be found at the OSCI website, http://www.systemc.org; the

http://www.ntcadcam.co.uk/

http://www.systemc.org/


European SystemC User Group website, http://www-ti.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de; and the North American SystemC User Group website, http://www.nascug.org.

"Our company has been addressing the complexity of System-On-Chip (SoC) using the SystemC language for the last four years," said Jean-Marc Chateau, director of IP and Design at STMicroelectronics, an OSCI member company. "Winning the time to volume challenge is our key objective and we are moving our environment to use the IEEE 1666 standard. We expect our suppliers and partners to deliver system IP models based on this standard."

"The Starkey Colorado IC Design Center has been using SystemC in its ASIC flow for over four years," said Greg Tumbush, digital design engineer at Starkey Colorado IC Design Center. "We use SystemC for architecture exploration, RTL verification, and system simulation which have yielded two successful tapeouts with another in early 2006. Starkey Labs supports ratification of the SystemC standard by IEEE because standardization is essential for compatibility across the broad range of tools we use. We are very excited about the new capability in this release and the availability of an LRM."

"Since the ramp-up of the OSCI organization, NEC Electronics has been supportive of SystemC as the standard language for system-level design. With stepping up to IEEE standardization, interoperability and stability will be ensured and our deployment of C-based design flow will be accelerated," said Hiroshi Sakuma, general manager, Design Engineering Division, Technology Foundation Development Operation Unit of NEC Electronics Corporation.

OSCI continues to work with the SystemC community to develop system-level design standards and open source libraries that layer upon IEEE 1666 to foster a healthy ecosystem of commercial IP, tools, silicon and systems. Development of OSCI's open source proof-of-concept SystemC library continues and an updated version that removes known incompatibilities with IEEE 1666-2005 is currently under technical review within OSCI.

OSCI has added Canon Inc., Carbon Design Systems, Inc, Doulos Ltd., Intel Corporation, Jeda Technologies and Tenison EDA as new associate corporate members this year. Current associate corporate members include Atrenta, Inc., Calypto Design Systems, Inc., Celoxica Ltd., ChipVision Design Systems, AG, ESLX, Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, Intel Corporation, Prosilog SA, SpiraTech Ltd., Summit Design, Inc., Synfora, Inc. and Tenison EDA. Corporate members include ARM, Cadence Design Systems, Inc., CoWare, Inc., Forte Design Systems, Inc., Mentor Graphics Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, STMicroelectronics and Synopsys, Inc.

The Open SystemC� Initiative (OSCI) is an independent, not-for-profit association composed of a broad range of organizations dedicated to supporting and advancing SystemC as an open industry standard for system-level modeling, design and verification. SystemC is a language built in C++ that spans from concept to implementation in hardware and software. The IEEE Standards Association recently approved the standard for the SystemC library as IEEE Std. 1666� -2005. For further information visit http://www.systemc.org.


http://www-ti.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/

http://www.nascug.org/

http://www.systemc.org/


Product News Accept Software Releases Accept 360° Version 3.3 November 2005

Accept Software released Accept 360° version 3.3, enhancing Accept's leadership in integrating Requirements Management, Customer Needs Management, Strategic Planning, Product, Portfolio, and Platform Planning, and Product Development into a single solution that works for companies in hardware, software, and service industries.

Learn more about their solutions for industries and stakeholders. Click here to return to Contents

Agile Expands Compliance, Product Portfolio, Product Collaboration and Quality Management Capabilities in Latest Version of Leading PLM Solution 12 December 2005

Agile Software Corporation announced that Agile 9.2, the latest version of its next generation release for managing the enterprise product record throughout the product lifecycle, will be generally available on December 19, 2005. This latest release features enhanced overall functionality and expands on the solution's compliance, product portfolio, product collaboration and quality management modules. The Agile PLM solution will also support the Linux operating system, enhancing flexibility, improving intellectual property security, and reducing total cost of ownership for the company's over 10,000 global customers.

"As PLM vendors add greater breadth to their solutions, business enabling functionality is quickly becoming the key purchasing factor among global 2000 companies selecting a PLM solution," said Peter Bilello, director of consulting services, CIMdata. "With the added functionality to its compliance, product portfolio, product collaboration and quality management suites, Agile is a leading PLM player and should be on the short list of any global organization looking to drive business performance."

This release builds on the momentum of its next generation solution, Agile 9, to provide a broad suite of business-ready, best-practice PLM solutions built on a unified enterprise PLM architecture. With a focus on overall functionality, the enhanced Agile PLM solution includes the following upgrades to reflect Agile's 10,000 worldwide customers' needs:

Agile Delivers Expanded Functionality

-- Agile Product Governance and Compliance�Agile's solution to help organizations manage product and program compliance against standards and regulatory requirements, now provides expanded capabilities to manage Bill of Substance information and rollup compliance information using a variety of scenarios. It also delivers improved supplier declaration capability and regulatory information to ensure effective compliance throughout enterprise operations. In addition, PG&C also includes upgraded Bill of Substance adapters for Agile partners�PartMiner, i2 technologies, Avent, and Arrow�enabling

http://www.acceptsoftware.com/solutions/index.html

http://www.acceptsoftware.com/solutions/industry_solutions/index.html

http://www.acceptsoftware.com/solutions/solutions_by_role/index.html


suppliers powerful environmental standards declaration tools. With immediate and extensive supplier and regulatory information, organizations will now be better equipped to meet environmental regulation standards such as the Waste of Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) directive and the Restrictions of Hazardous Substance (ROHS) regulations.

-- Agile Product Portfolio Management�This out-of-the-box solution now includes executive portfolio analytics and bi-directional integration with Microsoft Project, enabling organizations to optimize their product development investments by providing tightly synchronized program and product information, maximized resource utilization, and cross-program visibility and decision support throughout the product lifecycle. Agile's extensive portfolio analytics include time to market, financial, resources pool, program and issues tracking.

-- Agile Product Collaboration�In Agile 9.2, the suite's flagship solution adds enhanced change collaboration and document management capabilities, providing each stakeholder in the extended design and supply chain secure access to critical product record data, including bills of material, attributes, manufacturers, configurations, specifications, documents, models, work instructions, revisions and more.

-- Improved Global Interface�To meet the growing number of organizations with worldwide operations and extended global supply chains, Agile now offers its PLM portfolio completely localized in six different languages: English, French, German, Japanese, traditional Chinese, and simplified Chinese.

-- Introduces Agile Product Quality Management�In addition to the above product enhancements, Agile has renamed its Agile Product Service and Improvement solution Agile Product Quality Management in order to better align Agile technology with customer needs. The solution also now includes advanced analytics capabilities to drive improved product quality and customer satisfaction by tightly integrating customer, product, quality and regulatory information within a closed-loop corrective action system. Agile Product Quality Management enables companies to fulfill customer demands for higher quality, faster response and compliance with regulatory requirements.

-- Linux Support�Agile adds the Linux open source operating system to its list of supported environments. The addition of the Linux operating system will enhance flexibility, improve intellectual property security, and reduce total cost of ownership for the company's over 10,000 global customers. Agile will support Red Hat Linux AS version 4.0, the core operating system and infrastructure enterprise Linux solution for business-critical applications.

"This latest release builds upon our long term efforts to include our customers in every step of the product development process," said Bryan D. Stolle, chief executive officer and chairman of Agile. "Our customers communicated a need for a highly functional solution that helps them meet increasing government regulations, manage shrinking product development cycles, drive quality, and integrate global supply chains. In the case of the Agile 9.2 release, our collaborative efforts have resulted in a highly functional solution that meets our customers' needs."



Agilent Technologies Announces Collaboration With CEA-Leti on Next-Generation Wireless System Design Flow 12 December 2005

Agilent Technologies Inc. announced a collaboration with CEA-Leti to define and implement a design flow for the development of next-generation wireless systems. CEA-Leti, located in Grenoble, France, is a laboratory dedicated to microelectronics and microtechnologies research. Agilent and CEA-Leti expect the wireless system design flow, based on Agilent's Advanced Design System (ADS) EDA software, to shorten design time, reduce risk, and allow system designers to modify and reuse existing circuit intellectual property for advanced applications.

CEA-Leti is currently using ADS and the Agilent Ptolemy simulator to investigate and develop applications for fourth-generation (4G) wireless communication systems. Today, the Ptolemy simulator has the capability to integrate MATLAB® and C++ models. In the first phase of the collaboration, Agilent's EEsof EDA division and CEA-Leti plan to focus on integrating the SystemC open-source class library into the ADS Ptolemy simulator. The results of this effort will be available in the next ADS release in 2006.

"The rapid evolution of wireless communication standards requires a design and simulation environment that can integrate high-level system descriptions with RF impairments," said Pierre Vincent, head of the architecture and RF design laboratory at CEA-Leti. "Agilent has the underlying technology and know-how to deliver such a solution. We are pleased to partner with Agilent to investigate next-generation wireless system design."

"We see great value in collaborating with an institute like CEA-Leti because its advanced research helps set both the pace and direction of wireless system-level design," said Larry Lerner, research and development manager at Agilent's EEsof EDA division. "We're committed to helping CEA-Leti, along with its university partners, create a future full of possibilities for the industries that the company serves."

Agilent's ADS is an EDA software platform that supports system and RF design engineers developing designs from simple to the most complex, from RF/microwave modules to integrated MMICs for communications and aerospace/defense applications. It has a complete set of simulation technologies, ranging from frequency- and time-domain circuit simulation to electromagnetic field simulation, allowing designers to fully characterize and optimize designs in a single, integrated design environment.

The Agilent Ptolemy simulator is a system-level simulation and design tool for ADS that is based on a hybrid of data flow and timed synchronous technologies. It simplifies the design and simulation of digital- (DSP), analog-, and mixed-signal-based RF systems and circuits, including wireless and wireline receivers, transmitters, modems, cellular phones and radar. The integration of the SystemC open-source C++ class library and a methodology that can be used to create cycle-accurate models of software algorithms, hardware architecture, system-on-chip interface, and system-level design is expected to allow system designers to specify front-end performance and validate hardware implementation.

More information about Agilent's EDA products and applications is available at http://www.agilent.com/find/eesof.

http://www.agilent.com/find/eesof



Apriso Corporation Announces FlexNet Version 9.3; Newest Version of Widely Used Software Provides Greater Manufacturing Agility, Adaptability

13 December 2005

FlexNet� Version 9.3 is now available directly from Apriso Corporation and from resellers, the company announced. This upgrade to the widely used software solution helps manufacturing and logistics professionals meet planned and unplanned challenges in their operations.

Introduced in 2002, FlexNet is a highly pliable execution software that can be deployed stand-alone or to extend the value of an organization's ERP, CRM, PLM or other business systems. The software is both a broad strategic operations execution platform that ties together the diverse activities of a manufacturer's operations, as well as a modular suite of applications that can be deployed as needed to provide a tightly coordinated manufacturing solution.

FlexNet 9.3 has been built for adaptive manufacturing�an emerging strategy driven by operations execution systems that provide the flexibility, visibility and integration required to support constantly changing business requirements. The results are optimal efficiency, quality and responsiveness, which can translate into higher profitability and customer satisfaction.

At the heart of the FlexNet platform is Process Builder� , an authoring tool that enables electronic process "flows" to be deployed to workstations both within the facility's four walls and out to the manufacturer's extended supply chain. The ability to quickly change these global processes without enlisting IT support empowers manufacturers to quickly respond to strategy shifts, changing market conditions and unexpected events.

New in FlexNet Version 9.3

Version 9.3 includes more than 160 new, pre-built "flows." A full range of modules that automate primary functions is offered with this release. The modules include:

-- FlexNet Production - an adaptive manufacturing execution system (MES) that offers real-time control over manufacturing processes and operations; continuously monitors and tracks work orders, schedules, and production tasks.

-- FlexNet Warehouse - an RFID-ready, specialized warehouse management system (WMS) that integrates inbound and outbound logistics with warehouse operations; and streamlines flow of materials through extended supply network for added speed and agility.

-- FlexNet Quality - an automated, flexible and paperless quality management system (QMS) that tracks SPC trends, finds defects, pinpoints their root causes at specific operational points; alerts supervisors to take corrective action for process anomalies; and links non-conformance, corrective action-preventative action (NC-CAPA) into production.


-- FlexNet Maintenance - integrates asset management and maintenance execution (MMS) into production, logistics, and field services operations; automatically detects processes and workflow required to keep equipment performing at peak efficiency; and collects "as-maintained" history on serviced equipment.

-- FlexNet Reporting - a business intelligence application that collects real-time operations and execution data; continuously aggregates, distills and updates performance data; and features meaningful dashboards and KPIs and drill-down capability for root cause analysis.

-- FlexNet Global Process Management - a composite solution that automates engineering change orders, genealogy and traceability; facilitates full revision control & approval; supports global deployment; manages process and product changes driven by design integrity, inventory, cost control; configures document control. Integrates with third-party PLM/PDM systems.

About FlexNet™ Technology

FlexNet leverages service-oriented architecture (SOA), an approach that makes integrating disparate point solutions and machine interfaces easy. The product's Process Builder provides true business process management (BPM) functionality by giving non-technical personnel dynamic authoring capabilities, which enables quick response to changing business conditions while maintaining continuous improvement.

A Simplified, Standardized IT Infrastructure

Proliferation of disparate IT point solutions is one of the most common barriers to supply chain efficiency. The daunting task of maintaining dozens of applications often prevents manufacturing organizations from implementing Lean, continuous improvement and other value-generating initiatives.

Further, analysts have estimated that each integration on a plant floor costs an average of $150,000 per year to maintain. Multiplied by even a small number of applications, the growing appeal behind IT consolidation and rationalization at the operations level is quickly understood.

FlexNet helps reduce an organization's total cost of IT ownership and can simplify its infrastructure by consolidating applications to a common data source. As a result, organizations can spend more time and financial resources adapting to business changes and driving continuous improvement. The platform is designed to provide a common interface to legacy and "best of breed" applications, and 24x7 uptime, even when the ERP system or WAN goes down.

Industry-Specific Features

FlexNet is built on a unified database model that incorporates Apriso's 13+ years of cumulative industry experience. Its industry-specific features make the solution a natural fit for regulated manufacturers, such as automotive, aerospace & defense and medical device, that need to comply with governmental or customer mandates, such as parts traceability, product genealogy and time & labor reporting.


-- FlexNet helps decrease exposure to warranty and recalls, reduce the cost of compliance with government- and customer-imposed mandates, and cost-effectively improve quality and customer satisfaction.

-- FlexNet offers interlocking traceability across product and processes, and genealogical consistency across suppliers.

-- FlexNet's help cost-effectively improve production and process control through the software's process enforcement features. The solution also helps improves operational efficiency through direct and indirect labor, equipment and scrap tracing.

"FlexNet is the industry's first truly adaptive software platform for agile manufacturing," says Jim Henderson, president and chief executive officer, Apriso Corporation. "We developed the platform to help our customers meet the planned and unplanned challenges they face every day. Organizations that create an infrastructure that accommodates changes rapidly and seamlessly are the ones that thrive. For them, change becomes a competitive advantage."

Pricing and Availability

FlexNet is sold directly by Apriso and through certified resellers. Pricing is based upon the number of applications purchased and company size. For further information, call 888-400-7587.

Apriso Corporation enables organizations to adapt to market changes and unexpected events; providing end-to-end, real-time control of manufacturing operations across the entire enterprise; lending visibility across the entire supply network; tightly integrating planning, execution, and control; increasing operational efficiency; and eliminating errors in the production process.

Apriso operates in nine countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific. The company has more than 140 customers and powers more than 400 installations worldwide. Its customer base includes such global companies as General Motors, Lear, Honeywell, Microsoft, L'Oreal, Lockheed Martin, Becton Dickinson, Baker Hughes, International Paper, Rubbermaid, Matsushita Avionics Systems, Saint-Gobain, Pechiney, and Essilor. For more information, visit the Apriso Web site at http://www.apriso.com.


Blast Radius Introduces New XML Authoring Solutions for EMC Documentum

13 December 2005

Blast Radius, a provider of XML content creation and collaboration solutions, announced the release of powerful new XML authoring solutions for Documentum Webtop. These XMetaL products integrate with Documentum version 5.2.5 and the increasingly popular and scalable 5.3 platform released by EMC Documentum earlier this year.

http://www.apriso.com/


With this release, Blast Radius introduces two new products, which extend XMetaL existing support of the Documentum Desktop Client:

-- XMetaL Author Documentum Webtop Edition, a native XML authoring application that gives full-time content creators an easy-to-use, flexible solution that is tightly integrated with the Documentum repository through Documentum Webtop.

-- XMetaL Express for Documentum Webtop, an embeddable version of XMetaL, used from within the Documentum Webtop interface. This solution is a flexible, cost-effective option for large enterprises that want to extend XML authoring capabilities to occasional authors such as subject matter experts.

"These new Documentum-XMetaL integrations help globally-focused businesses reuse content more effectively across their organizations, resulting in faster time-to-market, greater content quality, and more cost-effective localization," said Paul Wlodarczyk, Director, ECM Strategy at Blast Radius. "We see strong interest in XML-based content creation and delivery from customers in industries such as manufacturing, high-tech, financial services and life sciences. These organizations understand the increased demand for timely, accurate information by suppliers, partners and customers, in a variety of formats and languages."

Blast Radius customers rely on Documentum and XMetaL to manage content throughout its lifecycle and to provide XML-based content in a variety of output formats to their internal and external stakeholders.

"This release signifies an important milestone for XMetaL after having supported the Documentum repository and Desktop Client in customer environments since 2001," said Dr. Bruce Sharpe, VP of Products with Blast Radius. "We are extremely excited to provide a complete offering that caters to both full time authors and occasional content contributors. Organizations understand the increased demand for timely, accurate information by partners and customers, in a variety of formats and languages," added Dr. Sharpe.

Pricing and Availability

XMetaL support for Documentum Webtop is available immediately. Contact Blast Radius for pricing and additional information. Please visit the XMetaL web site (http://www.xmetal.com) for further details.

About Blast Radius XMetaL

XMetaL's family of software and services enables your company to create, share, reuse, and deliver content more quickly and cost-effectively, across all customer channels, from sales, marketing, and customer service, to training and technical support. Visit http://www.xmetal.com to learn how leading brands such as Cisco, Daimler Chrysler, HP, Kodak, Microsoft, Philips, RIM, Southwest Airlines, Sybase, Symantec, Texas Instruments and USA Today use XMetaL to bring products and services to market faster, with greater accuracy, and at lower cost.


http://www.xmetal.com/

http://www.xmetal.com/


Cadence Delivers New RF Design Kit Targeting Customer Design Challenges in Wireless 12 December 2005

Cadence Design Systems, Inc announced the Cadence® RF (Radio Frequency) Design Methodology Kit, targeted to address key challenges in wireless design. The new kit addresses challenges in a burgeoning technology sector. RF transceivers are a core component of all wireless devices, and a 2005 analyst report predicts wireless IC demand will reach $46.1 billion by 2006. The Cadence RF Design Methodology Kit helps wireless chip designers achieve shorter, more predictable design cycles by better ensuring that silicon performance matches design intent.

"The Cadence kits approach is very valuable and will benefit many wireless companies," said Gianmaria Mazzucchelli, vice president of Engineering, Nemerix. "Having a properly estimated and predicted system up front ensures that you have the whole wireless system under control. There are many techniques peculiar to wireless, and a design kit with recommendations on methodologies and tools is definitely a benefit."

The Cadence RF Design Methodology Kit leverages the latest technologies from Cadence for intelligently managing parasitic extraction and linking system-level design with IC implementation, and accurately, yet rapidly, verifying complete wireless designs that span digital, analog and RF.

The kit includes an 802.11 b/g WLAN transceiver reference design, a full suite of RF verification IP, test plans, and applicability training on the RF design and analysis methodologies. The kit focuses on front-to-back RF IC design and addresses behavioral modeling, circuit simulation, layout, parasitic extraction and resimulation, and inductor synthesis. It also focuses on IC verification within a system context, leveraging system-level models and testbenches for use by designers in the IC environment.

The Cadence RF Design Methodology Kit leverages accurate 3D extraction technology and advanced physical modeling capabilities from Assura� RF, links to system-level environments, and key new functionality in the Virtuoso® custom design platform with Flexible Balance option for calibrated results of transient and frequency analysis. The Virtuoso AMS Designer link to MATLAB and Simulink from The MathWorks is an example of a link to a key system-level design tool. The link to MATLAB and Simulink provides an executable specification that is continually elaborated throughout the development process. Thus, a common environment can be leveraged as IC designers verify against a system-level specification across multiple domains including system, digital, mixed-signal, and analog RF.

"With the link between Virtuoso AMS Designer and our MATLABand Simulink products, system designers and IC designers can now identify design and integration problems earlier in the design cycle," says Jim Tung, MathWorks Fellow at The MathWorks. "And by offering a viable path from system-level design to IC implementation and verification, and using a golden reference Simulink model through that process, a Model-Based Design approach can be leveraged effectively across the stages of a design."

The announcement of the Cadence RF Design Methodology Kit follows on the heels of the Cadence AMS Methodology Kit and the Cadence Optimization Kit for ARM Processors, which Cadence announced at CDNLive! 2005.


"Our customers continue to meet the market demands for ICs with wireless functionality, integrating voice and data capability with less power at a lower cost and within a shorter timeframe," said Ajay Malhotra, senior vice president of Marketing at Cadence. "We have seen tremendous customer interest in Cadence's kits approach and customers can expect more Cadence kits in the near future in areas of networking and consumer electronics."

More information about the Cadence RF Design Methodology Kit is available at http://www.cadence.com/products/kits/.


Clearvision Partners with CollabNet to Address Rapidly Growing Market for On-Demand Distributed Development and Application Lifecycle Management 16 December 2005

CollabNet announced that Clearvision PLC, Europe's leading independent specialist for software change management (SCM), has become a charter member of the new CollabNet Global Business Partner Program.

The new CollabNet channel program is the industry's first partner enablement offering that specifically targets developers of Software as a Service (SaaS), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and other on-demand, Internet-based software and applications.

"Clearvision chose to partner with CollabNet because the combination of superior CollabNet products and services together with their comprehensive Global Partner Program gives us a clear competitive advantage in the market," said Gerry Tombs, Managing Director of Clearvision. "CollabNet on-demand solutions ensure we are able to respond quickly to our customers' software development and configuration management requirements. Together with CollabNet, we are able to support our customers' needs by allowing virtual software development teams to communicate, reuse software assets, share knowledge, track issues and defects, and work with third parties in a secure, Web-based collaborative environment."

Expanding its leadership role in the growing market for next-generation distributed development and change management solutions, CollabNet is partnering with software change management experts and other leaders in the development of applications, embedded software, and complex systems. These CollabNet alliances equip partners to provide next-generation, on-demand distributed development and application lifecycle management services that are far easier and more cost-effective to implement than conventional installed development products.

"We are delighted to welcome Clearvision to the CollabNet Global Business Partner Program," said Chris Clabaugh, Vice President of Business Development for CollabNet. "Our new program is designed to equip our reseller, community, technology and services business partners with the business and technical resources to address the vast, largely untapped and rapidly growing market for distributed development. We expect that CollabNet, together with our valued business partners, can garner a

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significant share of one of the most enticing markets to emerge so far this century: Distributed Development On Demand."

The new CollabNet Global Business Partner Program is a channel empowerment program aimed at expanding the market for distributed development delivered as a service. This multi-faceted program is based on the recognition that many development organizations are being asked to provide global distributed development services, which represent an expanded market opportunity. The CollabNet program is custom tailored to the business requirements and long-term market vision of CollabNet partners. Initial program offerings cover demand generation and sales acceleration, joint marketing and communications, technical resources, support, and training.

Clearvision is Europe's leading independent specialist for software change management (SCM). Clearvision helps businesses reduce risk and improve economy throughout the software lifecycle by managing software change. The company helps customers define processes, train their organizations and implement configuration management. Clearvision provides complete solutions for configuration management, using leading technologies from partners such as IBM Rational and Serena. Clearvision clients include over twenty five blue chip companies and central government. Visit Clearvision at http://www.clearvisionplc.com or contact +44 (0)8704 584399.


Configuration Solutions and Infor Join Forces to Drive Value for Automotive Suppliers 13 December 2005

Configuration Solutions, Inc., a provider of enterprise-wide product configuration and selling solutions�from quote to delivery�announced that it recently signed an exclusive partnership agreement with Infor.

Under the terms of the alliance, Infor will offer Configuration Solutions' Product/Program Lifecycle Management (PPLM) and CS-Automotive software solutions to automotive customers to complement Infor Manufacturing Essentials for Automotive. Configuration Solutions' CS-Automotive and PPLM software solutions are designed to automate product and process costing and estimating, facilitate the management of engineering changes, and streamline program and project management for automotive parts suppliers.

According to John Flavin, Infor's executive vice president and general manager for discrete business, "Infor is pleased to establish partner relationships with leaders and innovators in the industries we serve. Our alliance with Configuration Solutions will enable us to deliver maximum value to automotive suppliers with an integrated solution that can help them optimize revenue acquisition and ensure ongoing profitability." Infor currently serves more than half of the top 150 companies in the global automotive supply chain.

Configuration Solutions' president and CEO Dale Colosky, comments: "We are excited about this new relationship with Infor. Our goal is to leverage our collective automotive industry knowledge and deploy quick-to-implement and easy-to-use software solutions that ultimately improves productivity and enhances revenues for automotive suppliers across North America."

http://www.clearvisionplc.com/

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Configuration Solutions' comprehensive suite of rules-based, Web-enabled software�encompassing process and product configuration, product development management, forecasting, and product/program lifecycle management�helps companies automate information and collaborative workflow processes and better manage products and programs to drive out operating costs, increase efficiency and productivity, and maximize profits and customer service.

Configuration Solutions (CS) is a provider of knowledge-based process and product configuration software and solutions for manufacturing, automotive and business service organizations. For more than 15 years, the organization has worked with leading organizations�from Global 2000 to small and midsize companies�providing enterprise-wide solutions across all facets of the business, from front-end sales and order management, to more sophisticated engineering and factory floor operations.

Configuration Solutions' CS-Enterprise software solution suite is designed to maximize efficiency and productivity, minimize errors and hasten information flow across the enterprise and beyond, regardless of product order or process complexity. Built on open architecture, Configuration Solutions' technology offerings are used by make-to-order and engineer-to-order manufacturers, automotive and business service companies with diverse product portfolios to drive out excess operating costs and eliminate rework of orders, while improving profits and agility in serving their markets. For more information about Configuration Solutions' CS-Enterprise solution and services, please visit http://www.configsc.com.


C O R R E C T I O N—Agile Software Corporation 14 December 2005

In the news release, Agile Expands Compliance, Product Portfolio, Product Collaboration and Quality Management Capabilities in Latest Version of Leading PLM Solution, issued yesterday, Dec. 12, by Agile Software Corporation over PR Newswire, please be advised that the date in the first paragraph, first sentence, should read "December 19, 2005" rather than "December 19, 2006" as originally issued inadvertently. The corrected sentence is Agile Software Corporation announced that Agile 9.2, the latest version of its next generation release for managing the enterprise product record throughout the product lifecycle, will be generally available on December 19, 2005.


Delphi Technologies Strengthens Its Design Methodologies Portfolio With Two Additional Patents 14 December 2005

Delphi Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Delphi Corp., announced further validation of its standardized design methodologies with the addition of two more patents. Delphi's Design Methodologies (DDM) are used in CAD/CAM design to help reduce product and process design costs and increase productivity

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throughout the design-to-manufacturing cycle. With the addition of these two patents, Delphi further strengthens its growing patent portfolio for its innovative CAD/CAM methodologies.

DDM are a set of standardized methodologies. Using existing CAD software programs, designers can produce higher quality 3D CAD models that are easier to edit and change in design, engineering and other downstream functions. Like Six Sigma and other popular standardized methodologies, the business benefits of DDM include reduced cycle times, faster change processing, reduced waste, greater efficiency and faster time to market.

The two new patents, the horizontal structured manufacturing process model and the vertical to horizontal conversion process, increase the strength of the standardized methodologies developed by Delphi Technologies Inc. (DTI) by allowing more flexibility.

"The first patent has a feature that allows for a 3D in-process model element to link to its corresponding 3D master model while being in a different file location," said Diane Landers, CAD coordinator at Delphi Steering, and one of the inventors of the methods. "This allows complete machining sequences and operations to be performed without encountering file size limitations, providing greater business flexibility and efficiency in the process."

The second patented design, the vertical to horizontal conversion process, converts vertical models into a horizontal format. This helps minimize the amount of rework required to use legacy data and increases design reuse.

"This process may allow engineers to salvage old data by reconstructing a portion of the feature structure of the data, thus making it useful to a new design," said Kevin Marseilles, advanced manufacturing designer at Delphi Steering, another inventor of the methods. "In turn, this prevents designers from reinventing the wheel, so to speak, by using successful work and building on it."

Engineers and support personnel at Delphi continue to work on this standardized methodology specifically for CAD/CAM design, as more flexibility means vital time and cost savings for anyone who works in the field.

"By having a strong portfolio of patents now�and additional applications pending at the patent office�Delphi continues to validate the strength of this process," said Tim Forbes, director, new markets, commercialization and licensing, Delphi. "In addition to helping us internally, these processes are now available to help other companies or organizations to streamline their design and redesign process methodologies."

For more information about DDM, please visit http://www.delphi.com/ddm. For more information about Delphi, please visit http://www.delphi.com/media. For more information about Delphi Technologies Inc. (DTI), please visit http://www.delphi.com/dti/.


http://www.delphi.com/ddm

http://www.delphi.com/dti/


ESPRIT Now Offers Solid Edge V18 Add-in Allowing Immediate Push-Button Transfer 9 December 2005

DP Technology, announced ESPRIT�s compatibility with Solid Edge® V18 and the functionality offered within this new release. ESPRIT now offers push button transfer of native Solid Edge V18 part models into ESPRIT ready for machining.

Version 18 of Solid Edge software is an industry-leading, value-based 3D computer-aided design (CAD) system that serves as a key component of the UGS Velocity Series.

The ESPRIT Add-In for Solid Edge is immediately available to all ESPRIT users from the online ESPRIT Add-In Store at http://www.dptechnology.com.


FLUENT 6.3 Beta Release Shows CFD Performance Enhancements with the new Intel® C++ Compiler 9.0 for Linux 14 December 2005

Fluent Inc. announces that the recently released beta version of its flagship flow simulation software, FLUENT 6.3, includes significant performance improvements on the Linux operating system (OS), stemming from the adoption of Intel® C++ Compiler 9.0 for Linux. Using the Intel C++ Compiler, FLUENT 6.3 beta has been compared to nine typical CFD examples and shows performance improvements ranging from a few percent up to as much as 50%. The compiler has been applied mainly to the Intel® Xeon® processor, but, it is also showing significant performance gains with the Intel® Itanium® processor. FLUENT is the most popular CFD software in the world by far, and is used extensively on Linux OS.

"Fluent has moved to the Intel Compiler for our upcoming release because it provided the best performance and robustness of the many compilers that we tested,' notes Paul Bemis, VP Marketing at Fluent. "Many of our customers are using Linux-based systems and this FLUENT 6.3 performance gain will help reduce the turnaround time on CFD computations. Intel has worked closely with us in order to tune and improve our software's performance and we are very happy with the outcome of the collaboration."

"Intel understands that software development products are a critical part of the overall ecosystem required for high-performance computing," notes James Reinders, director of marketing and business for the Intel Software Products Division. "Fluent chose Intel C++ Compiler for Linux to help customers achieve optimal performance for supercomputing applications such as simulations, visualization and scientific analysis."


http://www.dptechnology.com/


Geometric Software Solutions Co. Ltd.’s Progress on CAD/PDM Product 9 December 2005

In a letter to The National Stock Exchange of India Ltd., Geometric Software describes its progress on a CAD/PDM product:

This is to inform you that the company has entered into certain agreements which it believes will have a material impact on the Company�s revenues and positioning over the long term � albeit there will be no material impact in the immediate future.

The Company has signed agreements with M/s. Dassault Systemes and M/s. UGS Corp. to license their technologies and build a product enabling users of CATIA V5 with the Eng Hub option to work along side with users of the Teamcenter PDM systems (both Teamcenter Engineering and Teamcenter

Enterprise). In addition, the Company has reached an agreement with IBM that enables IBM to take orders from end users for such a solution. Further, the Company has reached an agreement with UGS Corp. to distribute such a solution to end users. The Company is free to appoint additional distributors.

These agreements follow a series of Proof of Concepts submitted to various automotive users at meetings of the Strategic Automotive CATIA Forum (SACF) and Automotive Steering Group (ASG) over the last twelve months. The Company has also received commitments from 2 large companies to take this solution through a pilot phase. The architecture for this product is extensible and the Company hopes in future to support other PDM systems. It also believes there will be significant opportunities for services around the solution.


Gerber Technology Announces Worldwide Strategic Alliance With ecVision

14 December 2005

Gerber Technology announced that it has entered into an exclusive worldwide strategic alliance with ecVision, a provider of global sourcing and collaboration applications for organizations that have international sourcing needs. This strategic alliance will enable the development and marketing of innovative integrated solutions designed specifically for the fashion industry.

�We are pleased to announce this alliance with ecVision to bring their award-winning sourcing and collaboration framework together with our own feature-rich technology solutions to meet the specific needs of the fashion industry,� said John Hancock, president, Gerber Technology. �Partnering with ecVision further gives us the opportunity to diversify and extend our offering and continues our commitment to provide innovative, customer-centric solutions.�

�Gerber Technology has long been the leader in providing product development solutions globally to apparel brands, retailers and manufacturers,� said Thomas Ng, CEO of ecVision. �It is a pleasure to


partner with them to develop solutions that extend from product concept through all stages of the supply chain.�

Gerber Technology (http://www.gerbertechnology.com), a business unit of $517 million corporation Gerber Scientific, Inc., develops and manufactures integrated software and hardware automation systems for manufacturers and retailers in the sewn products and flexible materials industries. These systems automate and significantly improve the efficiency of information management, product design and development, pre-production, and production processes. The company offers specialized solutions to a variety of end-user markets including apparel, transportation interiors, furniture, composites and industrial fabrics.

ecVision (http://www.ecvision.com) is a provider of web-based Global Sourcing & Collaboration Systems for the apparel/footwear industry. Their system, XpressCommerce, enables retailers to reduce lead times and make pro-active decisions based on real-time information. XpressCommerce is designed to handle the unique requirements of the apparel/footwear industry, and utilizes industry-leading task assignment, event management, alert escalation, and intelligent workflow handoffs to create visibility and eliminate communication delays throughout the entire sourcing process.

Established in 1998, ecVision maintains global headquarters in Iselin, New Jersey, with Asia-Pacific offices in Hong Kong, as well as a network of value added resellers in 15 countries. The company�s customers are top retailers and brand manufacturers, including JCPenney, Abercrombie & Fitch, Saks, and many others. Additional information about ecVision and its products and services is available at 732-582-3900 or [email protected] for the Americas and 852.2788-1010 for Asia-Pacific.


Kubotek USA Offers CADKEY Users a New Lease on Life

12 December 2005

Kubotek USA launched a program offering new advantages for die-hard fans of the CADKEY software. The company is kicking off an aggressive program to help users preserve the life of their CADKEY files. CADKEY is the predecessor to KeyCreator, the company's design and manufacturing software. The discount program is designed to help users cost effectively retain CADKEY functionality as they change and modernize their Windows computing environments.

"CADKEY customers have been loyal to the software for many years. They asked us to develop specific capabilities before they would take a serious look at adding KeyCreator to their environments," said Robert Bean, chief operating officer, Kubotek USA. "Now CADKEY users can keep their existing licenses. Kubotek is making it easy for users to get the most out of their CAD technology with a tough-to-refuse offer."

Offer Designed for CADKEY Users

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The new Kubotek CADKEY program offers: even more enhancements to KeyCreator, a product certified and supported on the latest versions of Windows; the productivity gains of advanced solids-based design; associative drawing layout and file referencing; the familiar CADKEY-like interface with hundreds of time saving improvements; and a semi-automated conversion of existing CADL programs. The program also offers amnesty for all CADKEY users�regardless of current licensing status. CADKEY users get a major discount on maintenance, a "run-anywhere" license file and even a nostalgic trip down memory lane with a visit to http://www.cadkey.com/extend to collect information on the new program. The program will disappear on March 15, 2006, as will the discounts of more than $2,500.

Enhancements Keep Coming

Kubotek is committed to expanding the KeyCreator product line with new technology specifically requested by CADKEY users. The October 2005 release of KeyCreator included innovative Direct Feature Editing, increasing productivity during the editing of solid models.

"CADKEY customers have been very clear about the functionality they need to stay competitive," continued Bean. "Kubotek continues to respond to those requests by providing both significant and specific enhancements. Some of our newest functionality improvements include mirroring of dimensions, dimensioning of silhouette edges, and HLR integration with wireframe."

More information about the hundreds of advantages KeyCreator can provide CADKEY users is available at http://www.cadkey.com/extend.

The KeyCreator product family includes multidimensional design and drafting, numerical control (NC) programming and the company's geometry-based foundation with direct feature editing and sophisticated deformation techniques. KeyCreator blends surface, solid and wireframe modeling, allowing for easy model modification and editing functionality to support rapid manufacturing.

Standard list price in North America for KeyCreator begins at $3,495, including one year of maintenance. Current, maintenance-paying customers can download the new enhancements on December 15, 2005.


MfgQuote.com Unveils Manufacturing's First Online Collaborative Sourcing Service

13 December 2005

MfgQuote.com announced the general availability of a new collaborative sourcing service created exclusively for OEMs who source custom-manufactured components through MfgQuote.com. This new service enhances MfgQuote.com's focus on community by furthering collaboration in the enterprise and also helps to increase the quality of sourcing, improves buying decisions and saves time and resources.

"We are helping to unlock the intelligence of the enterprise," said Mitch Free, president and CEO of MfgQuote.com. "This service will allow engineers and buyers to collaborate with suppliers during the

http://www.cadkey.com/extend

http://www.cadkey.com/extend


design phase in the product lifecycle and dramatically reduce the product cost and time to market while increasing product quality and customer satisfaction. This gives our community of buyers, engineers, and purchasing professionals the ability to discover and collaborate with the perfect supplier for a project, and manage valuable relationships for continuously improving performance."

Collaborative sourcing is the participation of multiple purchasing professionals and/or engineers collaborating internally or with external suppliers in a single sourcing system. The new offering provides a suite of online tools that streamline the sourcing process, automate collaboration and efficiently manage the supply chain. Buyers linked together online can securely distribute Requests for Quotes (RFQs), collaborate internally with other buyers, collaborate externally with suppliers, manage supplier data, and perform advanced sourcing analytics at an individual, group or product level.

The new service is hosted and managed by MfgQuote.com, with no software or hardware for the customer to buy or maintain. The service is free to purchasing professionals and engineers sourcing engineered to order parts on MfgQuote.com.

The collaboration enabled through MfgQuote.com's standardized sourcing platform gives companies a sharable, macro-level view of their supplier network. The result of this improved communication is higher sourcing quality, more informed buying decisions and sustainable bottom-line savings.

Key features of MfgQuote.com include:

• Collaboratively Source with Others Inside and Beyond Your Company. Buyers, engineers and others who play a role in sourcing can collaborate on sourcing events. For example, a buyer may be responsible for the business aspects in a sourcing process, and an engineer may be responsible for the technical aspects, such as providing CAD files or answering technical questions. Both can interact efficiently to produce an RFQ, respond to suppliers, and evaluate quotes.

• Complete Audit Trail and Leveraged Corporate Intelligence. System-generated and user-added notes to supplier profiles, RFQs, quotes and quote actions (award, decline, negotiated, etc.) provide a complete audit trail for sourcing events and create sharable corporate intelligence.

• Shared Information, Reporting and Data Export. Companies can selectively enable linked users to share data such as preferred/approved suppliers lists, blacklists, supplier ratings and prior history with a supplier. Users can create project folders and see rolled-up, projected, per-unit costs for all components in a folder as quotes come in. This makes it easy to compare quotes to baseline or target prices. MfgQuote.com provides a comprehensive suite of reporting tools enabling companies to run on-the-fly "what if" scenarios and to export data to Excel or other internal systems.

• Include Favored Suppliers. MfgQuote.com users can invite their existing suppliers to participate in RFQs, even if those suppliers are not already members of the MfgQuote.com network. Invited suppliers may quote work, but only for the invited RFQs. MfgQuote.com respects privately invited suppliers and their privacy.


• Digitally Signed Non-Disclosure Agreements. When users create an RFQ they can elect to require suppliers to digitally sign non-disclosure agreements before accessing drawings and documents. And as a secondary level of security, users can elect to review the signature and company profile prior to granting access. Thus, no one gets access to data without explicit approval.

More than 43,000 buyers across the industrial spectrum (aerospace, transportation, consumer products, electronics and more) use MfgQuote.com to source, collaborate, and receive quotes online for more than 200 manufacturing processes such as CNC machining, metal stamping, forging, plastic molding, metal fabrication and metal casting.


Microsoft and Autodesk Broaden Strategic Alliance to Enhance Productivity in Manufacturing, Engineering and Construction Industries 13 December 2005

Autodesk, Inc. and Microsoft Corp. announced an expansion of their existing strategic alliance to enable customers to more easily create, manage, and share critical design data at every stage of the project and product life-cycle processes. The companies announced the completion of the first phase of the expanded alliance, which includes the availability of new Autodesk DWF (Design Web Format) functionality to allow customers to integrate design information from Autodesk applications with Microsoft® Office applications and Microsoft Business Solutions-Great Plains® and Microsoft Business Solutions-Axapta® , now part of Microsoft Dynamics� .

As a part of the expanded alliance, the companies also agreed to further align their respective technologies, including expanded Microsoft support for Autodesk's DWF functionality and plans for Autodesk to support Microsoft XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language).

"Microsoft and Autodesk are removing obstacles that prevent people from working together," said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. "We recognize the important role Autodesk DWF technology plays in accelerating project workflows of many of our manufacturing, construction and engineering customers. By working with Autodesk, we're connecting critical information across the enterprise and entire supply chains�and enabling our joint customers to become more competitive."

As part of the expanded alliance, customers will be able to search and retrieve DWF-based information, such as land parcel maps and manufacturing product specifications, posted on the Internet using MSN® Search. This development will make it easier for project teams to find critical design specifications and information posted on the Internet.

With the new version of Autodesk DWF Writer software, users can use the one-click publishing feature from Microsoft Office to create and more securely share 2D and 3D design content. They can also easily share drawings, maps and models within Microsoft Office applications by simply dragging and dropping the DWF file into the application window, and preview, search, print, and email DWF files directly from Windows® Explorer.


"The expanded alliance with Microsoft ensures that customers have the right data at the right time in their manufacturing, building and engineering projects. Our research shows that design content typically impacts ten or more members of the project team and it often reaches them through Microsoft applications," said Carol Bartz, chairman and CEO, Autodesk. "By adding XAML support to DWF, Microsoft users with PC's running the Windows Presentation Foundation will have the ability to universally view design-related data as well as manage and share complex 3D design content more easily with downstream, non-CAD users."

Manufacturing, building and civil engineering professionals typically rely on a combination of design, office productivity, and back office software applications to complete their projects in a timely manner. Engineers and designers regularly communicate critical design information to extended teams, including suppliers, customers, procurement agents, sales and marketing teams. With current methods, the rich, precise design content is often lost in the transfer between design and productivity applications resulting in errors, inefficient workflows and slower time to market. To solve these problems, Autodesk and Microsoft envision solutions for common users�as well as their partners, suppliers and customers�based on Autodesk's Design Web Format (DWF) and Microsoft Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) technologies that will enable engineers and non-engineers to share critical design information across the enterprise.

Companies such as Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), the architects of New York City's Freedom Tower project, depend on Autodesk and Microsoft applications including Office, MSN Search and Autodesk DWF Composer to implement digital design review into their workflow processes. Hundreds of architects, engineers, and consultants on SOM's team working around the country are collaborating on design and building documents using Autodesk and Microsoft technologies. By using DWF Composer running on the Windows platform, the building and design professionals working on the project can view, mark up and integrate changes back into the design.

"It is very important for us to work with the Microsoft platform and Autodesk solutions such as Buzzsaw and DWF not only for collaboration amongst the engineers and consultants working on the Freedom Tower project, but also as information storage and exchange tools throughout the life of the project including the design phase," said Carl Galioto, partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP. "Just as SOM is a leader in our profession, we know that Autodesk and Microsoft are leaders in theirs, and it's a terrific partnership."

To learn more about Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP's use of Microsoft and Autodesk technologies for the Freedom Tower project go to http://www.autodesk.com/microsoftvideo.

Availability

The ability to use Autodesk DWF Writer and Viewer with Microsoft Office, Microsoft Great Plains and Microsoft Axapta support is available now. The DWF Writer and Viewer software can be downloaded for free in the United States at http://www.autodesk.com/dwf. The MSN Search and retrieval support of DWF's is scheduled to be available in early 2006 and Autodesk's support of Microsoft XAML is planned for early 2007.


http://www.autodesk.com/microsoftvideo

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Microsoft Unveils Five Solutions Built for Businesses in Growing, Dynamic Industries 30 November 2005

Microsoft Corp. announced general availability of five industry-specific solutions developed in close alliance with selected independent software vendors (ISVs) participating in the Microsoft Industry Builder initiative. The solutions, scheduled to be available Dec. 1, 2005, are designed for businesses that specialize in retail, distribution, process manufacturing, professional services, industrial equipment manufacturing, and field service management. The solutions announced today have been developed for Microsoft®Business Solutions-Axapta®, now part of Microsoft Dynamics�. Additional solutions will be released over the next few months.

These industry-specific solutions are a part of the first wave of Microsoft's Industry Builder initiative, which will offer customers solutions that are packaged with Microsoft support offerings and high-quality code review. The initiative was announced at this year's Convergence, the annual event for organizations that use products and services offered by Microsoft. With the first ISVs already signed on, support for the initiative has remained significant since March. Business partners and customers alike say that the time is right for Microsoft's Industry Builder initiative.

"Participating in this initiative has already proven valuable for our business, and for partners that sell our solutions," said Joop van Voorthuijsen, CEO of To-Increase B.V., an ISV specializing in providing effective solutions and add-on tools that support industry-specific business objectives. "It's an unprecedented opportunity for us to extend our partner and customer base and meet the demands of today's businesses with a solution that has the depth of industry-specific functionality, based on our domain expertise built up through hundreds of projects and the quality and support associated with Microsoft."

Each of these solutions is available to qualified Microsoft partner community members. Unisys Corp., a global systems integrator focusing on enterprise security, Microsoft enterprise software, open-source solutions and support, outsourcing, and real-time infrastructure, works closely with Industry Builder initiative solution providers such as Iteration2 Inc., Fullscope Inc. and To-Increase.

"Our customers expect vertical-specific solutions backed by Microsoft and energized by hundreds of business solutions partners in the Microsoft ecosystem," said Nima Bakhtiary, practice director for Microsoft Business Solutions at Unisys. "This initiative builds on our alliance with Microsoft and our commitment to enabling our clients to run their business operations more securely and gain better visibility into their business and IT development processes."

Craig McCollum, vice president of Sales Strategy for Microsoft Business Solutions at Microsoft, said that the Industry Builder initiative offers proof of Microsoft's commitment to working closely with its worldwide network of partners to deliver innovative business applications. "By combining the incredibly deep industry expertise of our solution partners with Microsoft's innovative business applications, support plans, and research and development capabilities, we are delivering a winning group of solutions for our mutual customers," McCollum said. "We've listened closely to our customers, identified unmet needs and delivered solutions that meet them."


McCollum added that, although the Industry Builder initiative is currently limited in scope, expansion is on the horizon. "As we indicated earlier this year, we're starting out with a focus on very specific industries and geographies, but the Industry Builder initiative is global in concept," he said. "The availability of solutions announced today is only the first of many Industry Builder initiative solutions that will be introduced to the market. Future releases will expand the initiative's scope in terms of both industries and geographies served."

The first solutions, available today, are these:

• Supply Chain Execution for Microsoft Axapta: Manhattan Associates Inc.

• Process Industries for Microsoft Axapta: Fullscope

• Professional Services for Microsoft Axapta: Foliodev LLC

• Industrial Equipment Manufacturing for Microsoft Axapta: To-Increase

• Field Service Automation for Microsoft Axapta: Iteration2

These solutions are being launched in multiple countries including Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. More information about the Microsoft Industry Builder initiative can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/businesssolutions/axapta/product/industrysolutions.mspx.

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of financial, customer relationship and supply chain management solutions that helps businesses work more effectively. Delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialized services, these integrated, adaptable business management solutions work like and with familiar Microsoft software to streamline processes across an entire business.


PTC Announces the Release of Arbortext® Advanced Print Publisher™ 9.0 13 December 2005

PTC announced that Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher 9.0 (formerly known as Advent 3B2) is now available. Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher is an automated publishing engine that produces professional, high-quality print and PDF documents with complex layout requirements.

Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher has helped customers achieve great success in areas such as technical documentation, financial reports, scientific/technical/medical (STM) journals, legislation and amendments, marketing brochures, telephone directories and product catalogs. Available in both server and desktop variants, Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher enables interactive touch-up of the automated result so that users retain complete control of the appearance of every page. Rapid, high-volume

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automation of the traditionally labor-intensive composition process is a key strength of the product. This product not only reduces costs and shortens schedules, but also increases flexibility by enabling reuse of the same design for multiple publications.

Highlights of Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher 9.0 include:

-- Improved application development through three new programming

aides including:

-- Format Stepper, which allows the user to step through the

format process.

-- Tracing, which allows the user to generate reports of the

commands being processed.

-- Logging, which allows debugging code to be saved within

the template and written to different locations.

-- Table improvements that provide significantly greater

flexibility, such as:

-- Nesting of tables within tables.

-- Additional keeps allow rows to be kept together and tables

to be kept with the surrounding text.

-- Up to five repeating headers and footers within each

table.

-- Productivity improvements, including:

-- Print, save and format in a single pass, allowing print

output to be sent to a number of output media/devices


while formatting.

-- Greater font flexibility through support for OpenType fonts

that contain TrueType or PostScript outlines.

-- Expanded support for XML-related standards including XInclude,

inline XSLT and additional XPath functionality.

"I'm excited about this newest release of Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher software," said Ken Stearn, Technology Director at St. Ives Financial. "Version 9 further extends an already innovative product so that we can enhance our ability to deliver smart solutions to both the complex document layout and publishing problems of our customers."

"We are committed to extending the benefits of dynamic publishing to publications that warrant the professional appearance of hand-crafted layouts without the associated time and expense," said PG Bartlett, vice president product management for Arbortext solutions, PTC. "Through the simplified application development and improved composition performance of our latest release, customers can ensure a faster time to market for their publications with information that is accurate and timely."

Faster turnaround and shorter lead-time to publication are among the leading reasons why organizations need to rethink their publishing strategy. Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher provides an automated publishing approach to address these challenges, enabling organizations to reduce publishing time, save production costs and deliver better customer experiences through timely, accurate information.

Arbortext Advanced Print Publisher 9.0 is now available from the Arbortext product support site at support.arbortext.com.

About PTC Solutions for Dynamic Publishing

PTC solutions for dynamic publishing enable companies to automate the assembly and publishing of product or service information in multiple languages and formats. These solutions are made up of the Arbortext product family and are used by 30% of Fortune 500 companies in the manufacturing, life sciences, publishing, government, insurance and financial services industries.


Pulse Connect Launched

14 December 2005


Pulse Technology Systems Ltd, a provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions, announced the availability of Pulse Connect, an application designed to connect the disparate worlds of CAD and ERP.

"Pulse Connect provides companies the ability to extract important part and BoM data from their CAD system and to compare this data to information that already exists within their ERP system� commented Damian Rafferty, Pulse Systems� Managing Director. "The ability to export and import BoM data in XML or spreadsheet format exists within most CAD and ERP systems, however the ability of Pulse Connect to compare the data before it is posted to the ERP system is a key distinction."

Pulse Connect is a key solution within the Pulse PLM suite of applications. With continuing pressure on organizations to shorten time to manufacturing, the key challenge is to extract important design information from your CAD system and post that to your ERP system in real time. The Pulse Connect application allows for the automatic extraction of selected CAD attributes, to populate Pulse Connect, saving time re-keying information and for accuracy and consistency between systems. Data can be extracted from the CAD model, in process, by clicking a button within the CAD application to launch Pulse Connect or out of process, by opening Pulse Connect and defining the assembly file location without the need to have the CAD application running.

The Pulse Connect solution is currently available for the following CAD applications Pro/ENGINEER®, AutoDesk Inventor® and Mechanical®, SolidWorks® and SolidEdge®.

Pulse Technology Systems Ltd is the designer, developer and supplier of Pulse PLM, a Product Lifecycle Management solution aimed at Small to Medium sized Business (SMBs). Pulse PLM provides Item and Bill of Material Management, Document Management, Action Request Management, Collaborative Design Integration, Product Configuration Management, Serial Number Management, ERP Integration, WebClaims and Warranty Management and WebParts for parts book management. For more information contact [email protected] or call +44 (0)28 8774 6030.


Sierra Atlantic and Agile Announce Seamless Integration of SCMnet™ on SAP NetWeaver®

12 December 2005

Agile Software Corporation announced that one of its systems integration and complementary solutions partners, Sierra Atlantic, has achieved "Powered by SAP NetWeaver®" certification for the latest version of its Supply Chain Management Network application, SCMnet� version 4.2. SCMnet, certified for integration capabilities with the mySAP� ERP solution via the CA-PLM integration scenario, integrates mySAP ERP with the latest version of Agile's PLM solution, Agile 9. SCMnet is now available for the SAP NetWeaver open integration and application platform to better serve the needs of customers using solutions from Agile and SAP. The "Powered by SAP NetWeaver" certification validates the seamless integration of SCMnet with SAP NetWeaver.



"Agile customers using SAP NetWeaver receive the benefits of a long-standing partnership between Agile and Sierra Atlantic," said Ray Hein, Vice President of Product Strategy at Agile. "Using SCMnet, companies can seamlessly integrate with mySAP ERP and be assured that they are meeting their corporate IT goals using 'Powered by SAP NetWeaver' certified and compliant integration."

"The achievement of 'Powered by SAP NetWeaver' certification reaffirms Sierra Atlantic's commitment to technical standards of excellence, and proves the value we bring to customers using solutions from Agile and SAP," said Marc Hebert, EVP of Sierra Atlantic. "Together with Agile, we offer solutions that enable these companies to accelerate time to market and reduce integration costs through the power of supported, out-of-the-box integration."

As part of the certification process, Sierra Atlantic enhanced SCMnet to take advantage of the powerful application and portal servers provided by SAP NetWeaver. SCMnet has achieved "Powered by SAP NetWeaver" certification by ensuring that the product deploys on the SAP NetWeaver Application Server (SAP NetWeaver AS) as a J2EE-compliant application and is integrated with the SAP NetWeaver Portal as a business package.

SCMnet's achievements of "SAP Certified Integration" (achieved earlier in 2005) and "Powered by SAP NetWeaver" certification mean that customers running SAP NetWeaver have a reliable integration solution that:

• Uses SAP-recommended integration standards and technology

• Runs on a powerful and robust application server, taking full advantage of its high performance, scalability and reliability

• Offers role-based monitoring and configuration access over the unified enterprise portal

Sierra Atlantic is offers offshoring enterprise applications, helping our customers optimize their investments in enterprise business applications�ERP, CRM, and SCM�from leading vendors such as Agile, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP AG and Siebel. we offer complete lifecycle e-business application management solutions�development, implementation, integration, upgrade and support�using our NShore� methodology. We integrate these point solutions into Application Networks® that enable business processes within and outside the enterprise. With over 750 satisfied customers since 1993, Sierra Atlantic is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Dubai, India, Malaysia and Singapore. For more information, please visit http://www.SierraAtlantic.com.


Sun Microsystems and Synopsys Collaborate to Certify VCS Verification Solution for the Solaris 10 OS on x64 Platforms 15 December 2005

http://www.sierraatlantic.com/


Sun Microsystems and Synopsys, Inc. announced an agreement to certify Synopsys' VCS® comprehensive RTL verification solution, a key component of the Discovery� Verification Platform, for the Sun Solaris� 10 Operating System (OS) for both Sun UltraSPARC® and AMD Opteron� processor-based Sun Fire� servers. The combination of the VCS solution's native verification technologies with the Solaris10 OS and Sun Fire x64 (x86, 64-bit) servers powered by AMD Opteron processors is anticipated to provide significant productivity gains for engineering teams developing next-generation system-on-chip designs.

"Synopsys tools have supported the Sun Solaris OS and UltraSPARC processor-based platforms for the past two decades," said Stephen Borcich, vice president, Partner Marketing, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Sun values Synopsys' leadership position in the verification domain and extensively uses its broad line of solutions for its SPARC processor and ASIC development. With this most recent collaboration, Synopsys will help deliver the additional benefits of Solaris 10 features, including Dynamic Tracing for the UltraSPARC and x64 platforms to mutual customers."

The VCS solution utilizes a unique, single-compiler architecture to natively compile design, testbench, assertions and verification IP in order to speed verification performance by up to five times compared with separate simulation and verification tools. The collaboration between Sun and Synopsys focuses on the optimization of the VCS solution's native code generation for the x64 platforms and the Solaris 10 OS. The combination of the VCS solution, running on the Solaris 10 OS with Sun Fire x64 platforms, is expected to provide engineering teams with the high performance and productivity needed to verify their next-generation designs.

"As a user of both Synopsys' VCS solution and Sun's server and operating system platforms, we applaud this new initiative," said Mike Hames, senior vice president, Application Specific Products, Texas Instruments. "The blend of VCS' advanced native verification technologies optimized for Sun's industry-leading x64 servers is expected to accelerate our verification processes."

"As a recognized leader in advanced electronics, Toshiba will be able to take advantage of the industry's comprehensive RTL verification solution, VCS® from Synopsys, along with the robustness of the Solaris 10 OS on lower-cost platforms," said Tamotsu Hiwatashi, senior manager of planning dept., System LSI Dept., System LSI Division I, Toshiba Corporation Semiconductor Company. "The combination of VCS and Solaris 10 on x64 promises to be a powerful tool in our electronic design arsenal."

"AMD is at its core a customer-centric company and a large part of delivering on customer needs includes our collaboration with companies like Synopsys and Sun that develop innovative products to further the computing experience," said Joe Menard, corporate vice president of Software Strategy at AMD. "We understand firsthand a technology company's need to achieve rigorous verification goals and on-time project milestones. Coupling AMD64-based Sun Fire servers and the Solaris 10 OS with VCS can generate the higher productivity required for advanced system-on-chip designs."

"Synopsys is a key verification partner with Sun's microprocessor development team," said George Zafiropolous, vice president of Marketing, Verification Group, Synopsys, Inc. "We welcome the opportunity to work together with Sun to certify our VCS verification solution for the Solaris 10 OS and x64 platform. We believe this can deliver additional scalable verification productivity for our mutual customers."


Synopsys Discovery Verification Platform

The Discovery Verification Platform is a unified environment that provides high performance and efficiency of interaction among all platform components, including mixed-HDL simulation, mixed-signal, system-level verification, assertions, DesignWare® verification intellectual property, code coverage, functional coverage, testbenches and formal analysis. Combined with support for industry-standard hardware design and verification languages, including Verilog, VHDL, SystemVerilog, SystemC� and OpenVera® , and Synopsys' proven Reference Verification Methodology, the Discovery Verification Platform helps designers achieve higher levels of verification productivity by contributing to first-time silicon success within required project cycles.


Synopsys Expands Mixed-Signal IP Portfolio With Interface Cell Libraries Featuring DDR2 SDRAM I/Os 14 December 2005

Synopsys, Inc. announced that it has expanded its DesignWare® Mixed-Signal Intellectual Property (MSIP) portfolio with interface cell libraries to include application-specific memory I/Os optimized to support DDR/DDR2 and Mobile DDR SDRAM. In addition, Synopsys has added a suite of standards-based general purpose I/O libraries, which can be assembled with the complementary application-specific I/O libraries to develop robust system-on-chip (SoC) interface solutions. The DesignWare Mixed-Signal I/O Libraries are designed with an emphasis on signal integrity and ease of integration, enabling designers to more quickly achieve reliable, repeatable interface performance across a broad range of applications, such as feature-rich mobile handsets, digital still cameras, and mobile media players.

"We depend on Synopsys for proven, high-quality IP that will fit into a wide range of applications and still adhere to the signaling and quality standards required by our customers," said Rajesh Shah, Director of Engineering & IP at Open-Silicon, a fabless ASIC company. "We have been very successful implementing the DesignWare Mixed Signal I/O memory solutions in many of our customer's chips and look forward to continuing the relationship with Synopsys in this area to address the increasingly aggressive time to-market requirements."

The complexity and computational power of mainstream consumer electronics, computing and communication semiconductor devices have increased the challenges of implementing and integrating third-party semiconductor IP. Traditional piecemeal interface components are not sufficient to address the numerous signal integrity issues at higher operating frequencies. The DesignWare Mixed-Signal I/O Libraries combine proven interface design techniques, rigorous system interconnect validation, and documented integration and system engineering support in a suite of standards-based I/O libraries to meet today's interface IP requirements.

"Synopsys continues to expand its connectivity IP portfolio, this time with the introduction of the DesignWare Mixed-Signal I/O Libraries. These memory and general purpose I/Os enable designers to develop a broad range of high-performance, reliable system interfaces for mobile, communication and computing devices," said Guri Stark, vice president of Marketing, Solutions Group, Synopsys, Inc.


"Synopsys delivers proven connectivity IP solutions that help our customers minimize SoC design risk and improve time-to-market, while allowing SoC designers to focus their efforts on designing differentiating features for their SoCs."

Availability

The DesignWare Mixed-Signal I/O Libraries, featuring the DDR2 SDRAM I/O Library, are available today for the TSMC 130-nanometer G process technology.

About DesignWare Mixed-Signal IP (MSIP)

Synopsys' comprehensive portfolio of high-performance mixed-signal PHY IP for the PCI Express®, SATA, XAUI and USB protocols, as well as a suite of I/O libraries, enables designers to quickly integrate high-performance interfaces into their next-generation SoCs. Available for industry-leading processes, the DesignWare MSIP portfolio meets the needs of today's high-performance SoC designs for the networking, storage, computing, and consumer electronics markets. The DesignWare MSIP offering is complemented by a comprehensive suite of digital controllers and verification IP to provide chip developers with a complete solution for SoC integration. Each MSIP can be licensed individually, on a fee-per-project basis, or users can opt for the Volume Purchase Agreement, which enables them to license all the MSIP in one simple agreement. For more information on DesignWare MSIP, visit: http://www.synopsys.com/designware.


UGS Delivers Parasolid Version 17.1, the Latest Release of its Industry-Leading Geometric Modeling Software

13 December 2005

UGS Corp. announced the availability of Parasolid® version 17.1 (V17.1) software, the latest release of its geometric modeling component software. Parasolid V17.1 includes new capabilities to support more efficient 3D model construction, editing and refinement as well as to enhance computer-aided manufacturing applications. This latest release also includes extended support for advanced Microsoft technologies to deliver general productivity improvements for users of Parasolid-based systems.

�The Parasolid team has an unparalleled track record of supporting leading-edge application developments with timely solutions,� said Bruce Feldt, vice president of Open Tools for UGS. �The Parasolid V17.1 release harnesses the latest improvements in modeling techniques and computing environments to bring new levels of operational efficiency to the over 1.5 million users of Parasolid-based systems.�

Strength and Versatility

Parasolid V17.1 includes significant extensions to its robust functionality and ease-of-use across a variety of application domains, including:

http://www.synopsys.com/designware


· New manufacturing support functions for tool-path simulation and hole identification;

· Added capability for fast local editing with new patterning and face patching controls;

· Blending and filleting extensions to increase end-user productivity in complex configurations; and

· Enhanced modeling operators for efficient sheet modeling and construction.

Microsoft Environment Support

Parasolid V17.1 uses the new technologies released in Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005. In particular, the 64-bit Windows® platform is now fully supported, using the X64 compilers released with Visual Studio 2005, enabling advanced applications to utilize Parasolid with very large data sets to achieve unparalleled performance and scalability. Parasolid has also been released on 32-bit Windows using the compilers from Visual Studio 2005 to deliver improved performance and reduced code size.

Parasolid V17.1 also features a .NET binding, allowing Parasolid customers to integrate Parasolid into applications based on the latest Microsoft .NET technologies. Parasolid can be called via the binding with minimal performance overhead, laying the foundation for a new generation of Parasolid-based products.

Parasolid, a key software product in UGS� PLM Components suite of solutions, provides the geometric modeling foundation for many of the world�s leading computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering analysis (CAD/CAM/CAE) applications. UGS develops Parasolid, uses it throughout its product development applications and licenses it to independent software vendors (ISVs) and end-user organizations on a �level playing field� policy designed to ensure all licensees have equal access to Parasolid updates and enhancements.


UGS’ Solid Edge V18 Offers New Analysis Wizard for Design Engineers

13 December 2005

UGS Corp. announced Femap® Express software, the latest analysis tool in UGS� digital simulation toolbox that furthers the company�s goal to put analysis tools on the desktop of every design engineer. Femap Express is included in all new and existing licenses of Solid Edge® software, UGS� industry-leading, value-based 3D computer-aided design (CAD) system.

Market pressures to reduce design cycle time, increase speed-to-market and improve quality are driving the growth of digital simulation throughout the product lifecycle.

�Digital simulation based on 3D models is quickly becoming a standard expectation in the design process,� said Masanobu Sato, Information System Division, Shin Nikkei Company, Ltd. �Femap


Express, the new built-in CAE capability in Solid Edge V18, will be a great benefit because the designers will be able to analyze the stress of parts and materials very easily. We are looking forward to having a modal analysis, which will help us to avoid the noise caused by thin parts� (i.e. sheet metal) wind velocity.�

Moving Analysis Earlier in the Design Cycle

Femap Express allows design engineers to perform fast, accurate analysis while keeping costs low. By moving analysis earlier in the design cycle, Solid Edge users can ensure designs are strong and will function as intended so that costly recalls are avoided. Unlike other mid-market CAD tools, Solid Edge Femap Express allows users to conduct analysis within the context of an assembly and, more importantly, use the surrounding assembly model as reference for that analysis.

Key functional advantages include:

In-context part analysis: Analyze parts independently or in the context of an assembly where surrounding parts can determine where a force vector or holding constraint should be applied.

Best practice analysis: Track an easy-to-follow FEA workflow, leveraging preconfigured, best practices.

Static and modal analysis: Leverage both static analysis for stress, safety factor and deflection and modal for natural frequencies. The ability to predict the four major natural frequencies (modal) of a given component makes Femap Express the practical integrated solution for design engineers to solve real problems early in the design.

Sheet metal mid-surface: Use 2D plate elements to analyze an automatically-extracted sheet metal mid-surface, delivering fast and accurate results.

Nastran-based solver: Draw on the proven and recognized NX� Nastran software solver for results.

Simplified model analysis: Ignore design details that are not important to the analysis to return quicker results.

Automatic reports: Produce quick and easy html reports that include detailed information on part and material properties, constraints, as well as modal or static analyses results.

Femap 9.1 integration: For more detailed and advanced analysis, Solid Edge models can be associatively passed to a full Femap license.

For more information, visit http://www.ugs.com/velocity or http://www.ugs.com/solidedge.


http://www.ugs.com/velocity

http://www.ugs.com/solidedge

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