BBN and Texas Instruments announce joint venture; JV awarded $60 million; five year contract from DARPA for the Advanced Logistics Program.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 6, 1996--BBN Corp. and Texas Instruments, Inc. today announced the forming of the BBN/TI Advanced Logistics Program Integration and Engineering (ALPINE) Joint Venture. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded ALPINE a $60 million contract to be divided equally between the two companies over the next five years.

The BBN/TI ALPINE Joint Venture was formed to support the Advanced Logistics Program (ALP), a multi-year Research & Development project sponsored by DARPA and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which, along with the U.S. Transportation Command (US TRANSCOM), are major partners in the program. The goal of the project is to develop and demonstrate software tools and protocols needed to gain timely control of the logistics pipeline and enable the war fighters to project and sustain overwhelming combat power.

ALP will produce advanced information technology to put the right material in the right place at the right time, while allowing reduced reliance on large Department of Defense (DoD) inventories. The program will develop a shared technology base of information manipulation tools to support planning, execution monitoring, and rapid replanning throughout the logistics pipeline.

ALP will focus on four main areas:

1. Logistics course of action feasibility linked to the war

plan. 2. Force sustainment planing and sourcing. 3. Transportation tools to track assets and make smarter use of

transportation assets. 4. Rapid supply services for faster and more flexible acquisition of

supplies.

The technologies will be integrated by ALPINE into a prototype system environment. This system will be shown to users during a series of integrated feasibility demonstrations.

"BBN is very pleased to be a leader in changing the logistics arena," said David N. Campbell, president, BBN Systems and Technologies. "We believe DARPA is spearheading an effort in advanced logistics that will revolutionize how government plans and executes military operations, resulting in increased readiness and significantly reduced costs. This is also a good example of BBN's ability to develop innovative, network-centric applications for a real-time environment in productive partnership with a major technology provider."

In addition, BBN believes that its joint venture with Texas Instruments combines the skills perspectives of both companies to significantly contribute to the overall success of ALP. Dave Welp, president of TI's Systems Group, is excited about this key program. "This program fits in very will with our growth strategy by providing us an entry into the total asset visibility market," said Welp. "Not only will this program strengthen our position in the DoD logistics market, but it provides for longer term commercial growth. BBN and TI will make a good team for this project," he concluded.

Adding to Welp's comments, John Wright, vice president of TI's Advanced Programs Division, pointed out that "ALP is an important part of our developing Total Asset Visibility (TAV) business in our Advanced Programs Division. ALP will provide a total systems approach and solution to DoD's future needs. One of the exciting characteristics of executing ALP for TI is that the program will combine capabilities from organizations across the the corporation." In addition to Systems Group, other participating TI organizations are: SAVI Technology, with RF tags and information management approaches; Corporate Research & Development, with intelligent agent and advanced human-to-computer interface technology; and Texas Instruments Software, with DoD management information systems knowledge and development process.

ALPINE is a unified joint venture between BBN and TI. BBN will lead the efforts in systems integration and demonstration, building on its ongoing work in rapid development and fielding of logistics and transportation analysis systems for DoD. Texas Instruments will lead the efforts in program management and systems engineering, leveraging the product focus and enterprise re-engineering leadership the company has established.

BBN Corp. (NYSE: BBN), a leading provider of Internet solutions, provides Internet working products and services and contract research and development in advanced networking and collaborative technologies for government and commercial customers. For its fiscal year ended June 30, 1996, BBN posted revenue of $234 million.

More information about BBN can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.bbn.com.

Texas Instruments Defense Systems & Electronics is a 1992 winner of the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award.

Texas Instrument Defense Systems & Electronics (TI DS&E) designs, develops, and produces sophisticated systems including missile systems, tactical weapons, electro-optics systems, airborne radar and avionics systems, and electronic warfare systems that are used by sea, air, and ground forces around the world. With TI's broad base of technologies, TI DS&E has been a leader in applying advanced technologies such as mutlichip modules, image processing, gallium arsenide, microprocessors, and sensors to meet the changing needs of the free world's defense community.

More information about TI can be found on the World Wide Web at http:\\www.ti.com.

CONTACT: BBN Corp.

Peter Thonis, 617/873-3512

[e-mail]

or

Texas Instruments

Tony Geishauser, 972/462-6500

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