Conformia Software Announces WinePRO 2.0; Wine Industry's first full web-based solution simplifies compliance, traceability and production process management.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 17, 2003

Conformia Software, a leading provider of enterprise software solutions to regulated, process-oriented industries, today unveiled Conformia WinePRO 2.0, the first true web-based production and compliance solution built for the wine industry. Conformia WinePRO 2.0 is based on over 30 person years of extensive research and development into winemaking, production, and regulatory best practices.

Conformia WinePRO ("WinePRO") is designed to help the wine industry track their wine production process and enable full traceability from "bottle-to-vine". WinePRO 2.0 covers the complete process with solution modules for Work Order Planning & Management, Blend Management, Tank Management, Barrel Management, Lab Management, Compliance Reporting & Traceability, and Costing. It also covers the full brand life-cycle from trial blending, through production, and product history management. Customers can examine the status of all tanks and barrels; composition, cost, and analytical properties of a blend, along with numerous other types of status information. WinePRO's sophisticated user and role management ensures that information is available only to authorized individuals. Application views automatically adapt to the role of the user.

"Conformia WinePRO is a breakthrough in Wine Production Software," said Joe Prang, Chairman and CEO. "The web based / enterprise approach enables a whole new level of visibility into the production process from any location and in near real-time. Conformia is at the forefront of an industry wide change to these types of systems."

WinePRO configurations range from on-location systems for large multi-site enterprises to hosted configurations for small-medium enterprises (SMEs). WinePRO's modularity supports phased implementations, enabling customers to focus efforts on the areas of highest return first. WinePRO runs on a web browser so it can be accessed on or off site. WinePRO requires no software to be loaded on the user's system, training / online help is simple, and everything is configurable for the target winery.

For the Industry / By the Industry

"With the increasing complexity of the wine industry in recent years, production planning and near real-time monitoring of the production process have been growing in importance," observed Bert Silk, Director of Industry Affairs for Constellation Brands and Chairman of the Wine Institute. "Meanwhile, traceability requirements have become more demanding. Consolidation in the industry has given rise to corporations with multiple production facilities. The need for enterprise-wide visibility in terms of the production processes and cost is receiving significant focus."

Developing WinePRO to address these challenges, Conformia collected requirements from all functional roles in the winemaking process at wineries producing everything from formula wines, to table wines, to super premium wines. Over 20 software, wine industry, and regulatory professionals are involved in WinePRO's development, maintenance, and support.

Conformia WinePRO 2.0 - The PROfessional Wine Production Solution

Conformia WinePRO 2.0 assists the art of wine production with a managed, well documented process which can be standardized across multiple wineries of a corporation. Winemakers can drive all wine production activities from receiving grapes to creating blends for bottling through WinePRO. They can plan production by targeting blends to products and optimizing the availability of all required resources like equipment, additives and people. Cellar and Lab personnel have clear visibility of upcoming activities, allowing them to plan and execute their tasks accordingly. WinePRO generates TTB Form 702 for a user-defined period based on the activities in the period.

Major new features introduced in Conformia WinePRO 2.0 are:

-- Alerts Management - generate alerts if any production

parameter or blend characteristic drops outside an acceptable

range, thus enabling timely corrective actions 

-- Trial Blending - includes support for components within the

winery, externally sourced components and 'dream components'

-- Report Management - support for custom defined report

generation

-- Blend Traceability - visual representation of a complete blend

tree

Scalable Architecture Of The Future

WinePRO is designed to address the needs of wineries from small single site facilities to large multi-site corporations. It adheres to the J2EE n-tier enterprise application architecture. The highly scalable solution may be easily deployed on a single server or tiers that may be distributed across multiple servers.

About Conformia Software Inc.

Conformia develops Enterprise Conformance Management (ECM) Solutions for heavily regulated, process-oriented industries which enable companies to simultaneously meet production performance and compliance goals. For the wine industry vertical, Conformia has developed the groundbreaking WinePRO solution. WinePRO improves product quality and integrity; enhances blend visibility and traceability; decreases costs; and reduces non-compliance risks. The company was founded in July 2000, and is headquartered in Redwood City, CA. Lead venture investor is Sequoia Capital. For more information, please visit www.conformia.com.