Camstar and Pilgrim Software Announce Technology and Marketing Alliance for Enterprise Manufacturing Performance and Quality Management.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

CAMPBELL, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 16, 2003

Exclusive Agreement Creates an Integrated Enterprise-Wide

Manufacturing Control Solution

Camstar, a leader in enterprise manufacturing performance management systems, and Pilgrim Software, a leader in enterprise quality management solutions, today announced a strategic product technology and marketing alliance. Under the terms of the agreement, the two firms will combine their proven enterprise application technologies to create a single joint solution that will be marketed under the Camstar brand name.

"Manufacturing performance is all about reaction time," said John Beans, vice president of marketing for Camstar. "By integrating corrective action programs with production systems, manufacturers can more quickly discover, initiate, collaborate, resolve and implement changes to their production processes. This can have huge benefits, especially in heavily regulated industries, such as medical devices or pharmaceuticals, where roughly 40% of the IT budget ends up being spent on compliance."

"This trend is getting worse as the FDA tightens the screws and manufacturers continue to take silo approaches to system deployment and compliance. The result is a series of gaps and overlaps," said Roddy Martin, in the AMR Research Report Building the Consumer-Driven Supply Network (Part 1), June 2002. "Real-time integration of detection and response applications is the key to managing variability, manufacturing performance, and therefore regulatory compliance."

"In today's stringent quality conscious environment, it is important for organizations to improve business performance, while reducing regulatory risks," said Prashanth Rajendran, Pilgrim's executive vice president. "The partnership between Camstar and Pilgrim allows us to combine our respective strengths to deliver a world-class solution that will help our customers improve product quality, increase yields, accelerate time-to-market and achieve compliance with regulatory requirements. The combined solutions bring the vision of totally integrated Quality and Manufacturing Control systems to reality."

Key to the integration of the two companies' solutions has been a shared commitment to Web services as an underlying integration technology. "Camstar and Pilgrim provide fantastic examples of the practical value of Microsoft .NET and XML Web services in the enterprise," said Don Richardson, director of manufacturing industry solutions at Microsoft. "Because they embed .NET technologies and XML Web services into the core of their applications, they are able to seamlessly combine the functionality of both solutions to create a common user experience."

About Pilgrim Software, Inc.

Pilgrim Software, Inc. is the leading provider of Enterprise Quality Management (EQM) solutions for global manufacturing organizations. Pilgrim enables multiple sites, multiple organizations, customers, and suppliers to effectively coordinate improvement activities and share critical information. On the Net: http://www.pilgrimsoftware.com.

About Camstar Systems, Inc.

Camstar is a leading provider of enterprise manufacturing performance management systems for life sciences, semiconductor, electronics, and other global industrial manufacturers. Camstar's InSite(TM) product manages, monitors, and synchronizes manufacturing activities across globally distributed plants, and integrates them in real-time with core business processes. The system enables customers to respond rapidly to changing demand, optimize the use of production assets and quickly ramp the production of new products. More than 100 leading companies, including IBM, Corning, Kodak, Hitachi, Lexmark, ALZ Steel and La-Z-Boy, rely on Camstar as a trusted software partner.

For more information about Camstar and its InSite product solution, call 1-408-559-5700 or 1-800-237-2841 or visit www.camstar.com.