Viewlogic Enterprise Initiative Optimizes Product Development Cycle.

MARLBORO, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 1, 1999--

...`First-to-Market.com' Program Drives Enterprise Efficiencies...

...Herman Says EDA Industry Must Broaden Focus...

Viewlogic Systems, Inc., today launched "First-to-Market.com(tm)," a comprehensive program of business offerings - services, partnerships, software and technology - designed to help enterprises worldwide optimize the eProduct (electronic product) development process. The new, multi-faceted program leverages the power of the unified engineering enterprise to impact all aspects of corporate product development for increased profitability and competitiveness.

Highlights of First-to-Market.com include:

-- eProduct Services(SM), comprehensive consulting that helps enterprises substantially improve their business practices.

-- eProduct Alliance(SM), Viewlogic's new strategic partnership program that helps all enterprise departments work more effectively on product development.

-- eProduct Designer(tm), a new product line of tools and web-based communications capabilities that improves engineering efficiencies and helps shorten companies' product design cycles.

"The current trend of shrinking time-to-market means EDA companies can no longer focus solely on the electronic designer," said Will Herman, Viewlogic's President and Chief Executive Officer. "We have to provide system-level tools and services that help businesses effectively link multi-discipline engineering teams into a unified engineering enterprise. This enterprise, interacting with other corporate departments, can make the entire product development cycle more efficient. Viewlogic's strategy is to help customers take advantage of this `holistic approach' to eProduct development."

Comprehensive Consulting

The new eProduct Services organization helps enterprises optimize the total eProduct development process through a rigorous review of their business practices, including design process assessment, strategic planning, execution and productivity measurement. Viewlogic provides improved collaboration and integration throughout the engineering function and corporate departments.

"The Enterprise Group of the eProduct Services organization enables businesses to achieve major productivity gains by integrating engineering design processes with the enterprise infrastructure to facilitate communications, collaboration and planning," said Dan Ganousis, Viewlogic's vice president of eProduct Services. "The Enterprise Group focuses on optimizing design creation environments by implementing Internet-enabled EDA technologies integrated with corporate information systems. To compete in the global economy, successful high-technology companies are connecting engineering design functions with on-line corporate parts databases, providing design data management tools to geographically dispersed organizations, and integrating product development teams with corporate Product Data Management (PDM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Manufacturing Resources Planning (MRP) systems."

Collaborative Venture

Viewlogic's new strategic partnership program, eProduct Alliance, is designed to provide the engineering enterprise and corporate enterprise with the most-effective combination of products, technologies, enterprise tools and consulting services. eProduct Alliance will bring together vendors across the design spectrum, from Electronic Design Automation (EDA), Printed Circuit Board (PCB), PDM, Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), to software, hardware and silicon.

"Our mission is to deliver cutting-edge design flows and best-business-practice applications that are unsurpassed as productivity enhancing solutions," said Jeff Langner, executive director of market development at Viewlogic. "Intense time-to-market pressures facing today's business enterprises require highly innovative solutions. The eProduct Alliance collaborative venture marks the first time that multiple companies are working together in this fashion to integrate products, services and design methodologies in complete solutions."

Charter members of Viewlogic's eProduct Alliance include:

-- Accel Technologies, Inc. - The Accel and Viewlogic tool suites are a powerful combination for successful system design and faster turnaround in producing competitive eProducts.

-- Agile Software - The companies are developing and will market an integrated solution linking Viewlogic's EDA tools with Agile's product change collaboration solutions for e-supply chains.

-- Altera Corporation - Altera and Viewlogic provide seamless design flows for state-of-the-art PLD architectures, including Altera's new System-on-a-Programmable-Chip(tm) technology.

-- Analogy, Inc. - Analogy provides an advanced mixed HDL, analog, and electromechanical verification and debug environment that is highly complementary to Viewlogic's product offerings.

-- Compaq Computer Corp. - The companies are partnering to market the advantages of Viewlogic's eProduct applications and Compaq's industry leadership in delivering enterprise solutions.

-- Intercept Technology, Inc. - Intercept and Viewlogic are partnering to deliver a revolutionary solution offering the most advanced PCB/Hybrid/MCM design methodology available for today's complex eProducts.

-- MatrixOne, Inc. - Viewlogic and MatrixOne are addressing a critical aspect of the eProduct design process - the leveraging of tools and technology to control the flow of business information to key enterprise operations.

-- Microsoft Corporation - The companies are leveraging Viewlogic's eProduct design solutions and enterprise productivity initiatives on the Windows NT platform, giving customers a reliable technology infrastructure in the EDA market.

-- PADS Software, Inc. - Viewlogic and PADS deliver an advanced solution to the EDA market including design entry, verification, analysis and layout for today's complex eProduct designs.

-- Sun Microsystems, Inc. - The companies are fully utilizing the combination of Viewlogic's applications and Sun's network computing paradigm for "anytime, anywhere engineering."

Shrinking the Design Process

Viewlogic's eProduct Designer tool suite plays a critical role in enterprise product design. It boosts productivity throughout the engineering enterprise and reduces product design cycles. New tools enable engineers to evaluate hardware and software tradeoffs, consider the effect of the PCB layout on high-speed design earlier in the design process, and choose a flexible and variant design process.

eProduct Designer boasts a new product line that includes new and enhanced tools and the consolidation of Viewlogic's core product families - Powerview(R) and Workview Office(R) - into a single unified product family. All eProduct Designer tools are standards-based, offering users openness and the same functionality on their choice of UNIX or Windows-based platforms.

New eProduct Designer offerings include ePlanner(tm), a new high-speed design and virtual prototyping environment built on a new technology architecture that leverages proven technology such as the XTK(tm) tool suite; eArchitect(tm), an architectural prototyping tool that enables designers to make hardware and software tradeoffs early in the design process; and Design Exchange(tm) Variant Manager, web-based capabilities that enable base-level designs to be reused and customized. The first implementation of eProduct Designer will be available next month on UNIX, Windows 98 and Windows NT workstations. Prices range from U.S. $10,000 for DxVariantManager, to U.S. $25,000 for ePlanner and U.S. $65,500 for eArchitect.

According to Rick Lucier, Viewlogic's chief operating officer, "Engineers are challenged by compressed time-to-design pressures and their companies are struggling under compressed time-to-market pressures. eProduct Designer takes a multi-faceted approach to solving these problems. It helps eliminate bottlenecks among groups in the engineering enterprise and enhances communication between the engineering enterprise and corporate departments involved in eProduct development. In today's fiercely competitive business environment, the engineering enterprise is the key to corporate efficiency," he said.

New eProduct Designer offerings from Viewlogic's Customer Services group include web access for entering cases and verifying case status, customer surveys for quality assurance, and automated e-mail to inform customers of case closure status. The Education Services team in Customer Services will provide transition courses and focus seminars over the web. Courses and seminars will focus on skill-based learning and effective design methodologies. The Customer Services Usability Engineering team will constantly conduct usability reviews for new products and deliver comprehensive product documentation.

About Viewlogic

Viewlogic Systems, Inc., based in Marlboro, Mass., develops, markets and supports a comprehensive family of integrated eProduct design software and services for advanced electronic systems. Viewlogic defines eProducts as products that are differentiated by their electronic content. Viewlogic is a privately held company with offices in North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim. Additional information on Viewlogic and its products can be found on the company web site at http://www.viewlogic.com

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