Design Power Announces Flexible Software Licensing Program.

Business Editors & Technology Writers

CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2001

Pool Licensing of Industry-Leading Front-End Design Package Makes Software Seats Available As Needed For Complex Process Plant Projects

Design Power, Inc. today announced a flexible "pool" licensing program for PlantWise(tm), its industry leading front-end plant design software suite.

The new program provides the benefits of volume discounts for multiple-month leasing to owner-operators and EPCs (Engineering, Procurement and Construction contractors), without requiring that they use a set number of licenses at any one time.

PlantWise is recognized worldwide as a powerful tool for rapid conceptual plant modeling and automatic pipe routing. It is typically used intensively in the conceptual stage of plant design and engineering projects, when it enables users to quickly optimize plant layouts and visualize 3D models on the fly.

Because of the short duration and intensive nature of FEED (Front End Engineering and Design) projects, the demand for licenses used for short periods of time is extremely variable. The new program allows a user organization to receive discounts on seat licenses and manage its total license fees by paying for a set number of user months in a given time period, which can then be used "as needed" to accommodate work flow and project activity.

PlantWise customers report significant savings through its use in rapid modeling in the very early stages of a project. AMEC is an international EPC with an oil, gas and process business unit based in the United Kingdom. A senior mechanical engineer at the company commented on the value of PlantWise in a recent FEED project.

"It was recognized that the plant had not been arranged in the most economic way and using PlantWise the layout philosophy was completely reworked," said Graham Hoult, senior mechanical engineer, AMEC. "This exercise took approximately one week to achieve and provided a new layout and piping estimate, a job that would have normally taken weeks to complete. On the piping level this reduced the amount of material required and the subsequent cost by approximately 50 percent."

"For most design organizations, the optimal number of PlantWise seats represents about five percent of the total amount of plant design software seats," said Craig Howard, director of PlantWise Products at Design Power, Inc. "However, when a project first comes in, an increased number of licenses can have a dramatic impact on the productivity of the design team. One customer recently reported that PlantWise enabled them to accurately model a large facility with 18 sub-models and more than 1,600 pipelines with just four people working on the project for five weeks."

The new licensing program can include an average of 32 active licenses per year for a four-year period. Smaller pools of 12 and 24 license-months are available for a one-year period, and 48 and 96 month pools can be used over two years. The program provides discounts of as much as 75 percent less than full price licensing for the larger longer-term commitments.

About Design Power, Inc.

Design Power, Inc. is headquartered in Cupertino, California. The company's Engineer-To-Order solutions based on the Design++ software engine include PlantWise and CustomWise(tm) for web-based sales automation of ETO products. Manufacturing, engineering, construction, and chemical process companies use Design++-based applications worldwide. Design Power customers include AMEC, Bayer AG, Beijing Design Institute (BDI), Black & Veatch, British Steel, Emerson Motor Company, Liebert Corporation, Fluor Corporation, Monsanto Enviro-Chem Systems, Inc., Robertson Ceco Corporation, LG Engineering Company, Ltd., Techint S.A., Toyo Engineering Corporation, Samsung Engineering, Ltd., Selvaag Homes, and Snamprogetti Ltd. More information is available on the Design Power web site at http://www.dp.com.

(tm) -- PlantWise, Design++ and CustomWise are trademarks of Design Power, Inc. Any other product names used in this announcement are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.