Global Factory Announces the Appointment of Michael Armistead to Senior Vice President of Products and Marketing.

Business Editors

Global Factory, a provider of cross-enterprise eXtended Relationship Management (XRM) system for manufacturers, today announced the appointment of Michael Armistead to a new position as Senior Vice President of Products and Marketing. In his role, Armistead will oversee all corporate and product marketing, product development, and system operations. He will draw upon his marketing and operations expertise to help Global Factory accelerate its growth and reinforce its positioning as a provider of extended enterprise management solutions that can be implemented in days.

Michael Armistead brings to Global Factory over 15 years of senior management, marketing and operational experience in the enterprise software, outsourcing and Internet industries. Before joining Global Factory, Armistead was Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Foundation Capital where he focused on enterprise software and software infrastructure opportunities. Prior to Foundation Capital, he was President and CEO of InLeague, Inc., a technology-based payroll and benefits administration service company. At InLeague Armistead built the senior management team, repositioned the company and product offering which accelerated customer acquisition and revenue generation, and instilled critical business processes that vastly improved service and quality. Previous to InLeague, Armistead was Vice President and General Manager at Lycos, Inc., an Internet "portal" site. At Lycos he was responsible for overseeing marketing, products, and operations in the Finance Business Unit, orchestrating the unit's high growth and profitability. During his tenure at Lycos he also managed end-user communications services such as web-based email and instant messaging and key enterprise programs, including data mining and advertising technology.

Before Lycos, Armistead was senior vice president of product development and marketing at WhoWhere, Inc., which Lycos acquired in 1998. Armistead built product operations and directed strategy that supported over 40 OEM customers of WhoWhere's email and directory technology, including Excite, iVillage and Eudora (Qualcomm). Armistead has also held various product development, management, and marketing positions at Pure Atria Inc. (now Rational Software), and Hewlett Packard. He received both his undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering/Engineering Management from Stanford University.

"Armistead's proven track record in management and operations will help Global Factory to execute new marketing plans, extend the brand recognition and achieve its growth objectives," said Sharone Zehavi, Global Factory President and CEO. "We view his addition as a powerful draw with a valuable contribution to drive the company's product strategy and strengthen its market positioning. The industry still lacks an efficient solution to manage today's global manufacturing operations and the complex partner relationships. We are glad to have on board a seasoned veteran to exploit the opportunity of addressing this issue with our flexible and rapidly configured solution."

"I'm excited to join Global Factory and help establish market leadership for its unique solution," said Mike Armistead. "In today's economic climate, organizations need to focus on real problems and real costs in their production operations. The need to connect and monitor suppliers along dimensions such as quality and WIP is critical to manufacturing organizations. Global Factory has proven it can implement its solutions and provide returns in a very short time period."

About Global Factory

Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and founded in 1999, Global Factory provides a cross-enterprise, eXtended Relationship Management (XRM) system for manufacturers. The company's patented software solution extends operations management across collaborative manufacturing networks, providing real-time visibility and control throughout the supply and demand chain, including project management, quality control, inventory management, demand aggregation and product delivery.

The web-based GO! Global Orchestrator(TM) Application Suite improves operational efficiencies with a direct effect on the bottom line, at a fraction of the implementation cost and time of typical solutions. Its proprietary architecture and unique dynamic object capabilities allow business users to configure and modify underlying business processes, data-links, event management and analytics without requiring expensive and time-consuming programming expertise. http://www.globalfactory.net.