Alventive, Inc. Announces Alventive Collaborative Design Solutions 3.0; New Release Provides Advanced Collaborative Capabilities and Ability to Leverage PDX Data.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 30, 2001

Alventive, Inc., an innovator of collaborative design software, today announced Alventive Collaborative Design Solutions 3.0. This release includes a new solution, Alventive Project Navigator(TM), as well as real-time collaboration capabilities, the Alventive PDX Connector, improved workflow, and enhanced document viewing functionality.

"Collaborative design solutions are hitting the critical variables in the time-to-market equation. This type of technology makes it possible for manufacturers to squeeze out time and collapse distance when developing products," said Jack Maynard, Research Director, Aberdeen Group. "The capabilities that Alventive is delivering in Release 3.0 will enable their customers to achieve significant savings in time and resources and, in turn, substantially reduce the costs."

Alventive Project Navigator allows project managers to closely monitor business processes that utilize Alventive Collaborative Design Solutions. By automatically collecting and consolidating product schedule information generated by Alventive Collaborative Design Solutions, all project team members gain early insight into time delays or cost overruns. This insight enables project managers to make informed and effective decisions on how to direct resources and assistance. Project Navigator also provides a central location where product data -- such as project plans, customer requirement documents and product drawings -- can be easily stored and accessed during the course of a project.

"Alventive Collaborative Design Solutions allow electronics manufacturers to work more closely with their supply chain partners throughout the product development process," said Maury S. Friedman, chairman and CEO of Need2Buy, a leading provider of e-procurement solutions to the electronics components industry. "The introduction of Alventive Project Navigator, with its project-centric environment and depth of functionality, will enable manufacturers to significantly simplify and better organize their tracking of complex collaboration projects."

The Alventive Collaborative Design Solutions family consists of four software solutions -- Alventive Quick Collaboration(TM), Alventive Design Process Collaboration(TM), Alventive PreSourcing Collaboration(TM) and, with this release, Alventive Project Navigator -- that enable greater participation in the new product introduction process. Alventive solutions enable manufacturers and their supply chains to design out costs early in the product development process while reducing cycle times.

Real-time collaboration, provided through Alventive Quick Conferencing, powered by WebEx, is fully integrated into Alventive Quick Collaboration. Now, collaboration participants can conduct real-time meetings via the Web, share applications, and work together on product-related documents. Quick Conferencing facilitates instant meetings when design issues require real-time discussions and decision-making.

"Alventive Quick Collaboration provides a platform on which all parties in the electronics manufacturing industry can participate in the early stages of the product life cycle," said Klaus Schnurr, Vice President and CIO, Viasystems Group, Inc. "Providing viewable renditions of engineering drawings allows OEMs, EMS companies and suppliers to work in a secure environment without the requirement of moving large drawing files across the network. Real-time collaborations can now be held about design-related issues, as well as supply and manufacturability issues, thereby speeding up their resolution and reducing time-to-market."

Alventive PDX Connector enables companies to leverage data stored in other manufacturing systems that support the Product Definition eXchange (PDX) standard. The PDX standard provides an efficient, streamlined way to leverage the product data in manufacturing systems that utilize this protocol. With the Alventive PDX Connector, companies can import both textual and non-textual product data into an online collaborative product community, where design team members can utilize this data in collaborative design sessions.

Alventive Design Process Collaboration now includes an improved workflow engine that provides a graphical representation of workflows underway and ad hoc editing capabilities. Additionally, the introduction of event-triggered notification functionality allows users to place time constraints on any phase of a process and receive alerts when processes are not moving forward according to predetermined schedules.

With the introduction of Release 3.0, Alventive's viewer functionality has been greatly enhanced. Comprehensive measurement capabilities have been incorporated into the viewer, providing precise dimensioning for 3D models and 2D vector formats. Advanced 2D viewing capabilities allow users to access, collaborate on, and interrogate, ECAD documents, in addition to over 200 different engineering, graphics and Microsoft Office file format types.

"These newest additions to our family of collaborative design solutions continue to provide customers with the tools they need to get required input into the product development process early on in order to avoid costly change orders," said John Bruggeman, Executive Vice President of Marketing at Alventive. "With sophisticated project management capabilities and the ability to more effectively collaborate on the new product introduction process, our solutions are helping companies reduce cycle times and lower overall product costs, resulting in significant competitive advantage."

About Alventive

Alventive enables the creation of online collaborative product communities that bring manufacturers and members of extended supply chains together to participate early in the innovation of new products. Using Alventive Collaborative Design Solutions, companies can unleash their supply chains' intellectual capital to deliver market-relevant products faster, and at lower cost. Alventive is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. For additional information, please contact Alventive at www.alventive.com.