Ecommerce

Accenture, PTC, Sun Microsystems join forces to provide collaborative product commerce solutions Accenture, PTC , and Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced that they are working together to provide clients with comprehensive collaborative product commerce (CPC) solutions NEW YORK, NY, NEEDHAM, MA and PALO ALTO, CA, In order to accelerate manufacturers' product development cycles and improve cross-company collaboration, Accenture, PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC - news), and Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW - news) today announced that they are working together to provide clients with comprehensive collaborative product commerce (CPC) solutions. Designed to help companies leverage the Internet, the joint CPC solution helps remove the traditional barriers between companies, organizations and business systems by allowing key partners, suppliers, customers and internal production teams to work in concert through all phases of a product's lifecycle. This solution leverages Accenture's deep experience in delivering successful CPC implementations, PTC's Windchill software, and Sun's Network Computing Solutions and iForce[sm] solution approach. "In order to keep pace with the accelerated time-to-market for products, businesses must develop, build, and sustain secure channels of real-time collaborative communication," said David B. Rich, Accenture -- global industry managing partner, Electronics & High Tech industry group. "Collaborative Product Commerce solutions are rapidly becoming a top-level agenda item for CEOs. With this relationship, we will rapidly deliver industry-leading CPC solutions to help clients achieve a sustained, competitive advantage." "Companies who have vision and are willing to change the rules are those who will successfully gain and maintain competitive advantage," said Ed Zander, President and COO of Sun Microsystems. "This joint CPC solution effectively extends communication and collaboration beyond corporate and geographic borders. We believe in the powerful value proposition of CPC solutions and plan to make it an important part of our business here at Sun." "Manufacturers are clearly focusing on their core competency, delivering innovative products to market faster and at lower costs than their competition," said C. Richard Harrison, president and chief executive officer, PTC. "CPC solutions enable critical information from customers, suppliers and outsourced manufacturing partners to be aggregated and leveraged throughout the product development lifecycle. The combined offering of this team will provide customers with a proven CPC solution to rapidly achieve their business objectives." The joint CPC solution leverages each company's core competency to help customers accelerate their product development processes. Sun's iForce[sm] solutions approach aggregates best-of-breed applications and enabling technologies that are pre-tested, scalable, easy to customize and based on open standards. The joint CPC solution allows customers to expedite their CPC implementations through a flexible, proven blend of software, systems and consulting services. "Over the past year, we have worked together on a number of global accounts to successfully deploy our CPC Solutions," said David Rich. "Some of the largest high tech companies we work with, for example, are deploying our joint CPC offering to leverage the intellectual assets in product development throughout their existing Customer Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, and Enterprise Resource Planning systems." To facilitate rapid implementation of the offerings with clients, the three firms are working to leverage their respective CPC technology centers. This includes Sun's iForce[sm] Ready Centers, Accenture's CPC Capability Centers and PTC's Collaboration Centers. The combined team worked together to develop product development diagnostics tools that can rapidly assess the joint CPC solution's impact on shareholder value. Through this relationship, Sun, Accenture and PTC will initially target their solutions at the electronics, high technology, automotive, aerospace, defense, and industrial equipment sectors in North America. Part of the combined CPC solution initiative includes a seminar series called the CPC3 tour, which is being held in 15 cities through July, 2001. Additional information on CPC3 can be found at www.ptc.com/go/CPC3. The potential benefit to customers implementing such technology is vast. AMR Research estimates that, fully realized, the market "stands to create as much as $106B in incremental operating margins annually for U.S. manufacturers." (1) About Accenture Accenture is the world's leading provider of management and technology consulting services and solutions. More than 70,000 people in 46 countries deliver a wide range of specialized capabilities and solutions to clients across all industries. Under its strategy, Accenture is building a network of businesses to meet the full range of client needs -- Consulting, technology, outsourcing, alliances and venture capital. Accenture's home page address is http://www.accenture.com. About PTC PTC develops, markets, and supports software solutions that help manufacturers get superior products to market before their competitors. PTC is the world's largest software company with a total commitment to product development. The company services more than 30,000 customers worldwide. Further information on PTC is available at http://www.ptc.com. About Sun Microsystems, Inc. Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision - The Network Is The Computer[tm] -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to dot-com their businesses. With $19.2 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com. Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, iForce[sm] and "The Network is the Computer[tm]" are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Except for the historical information contained herein, matters discussed in this news release may constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These risks and uncertainties include the ability of Accenture, PTC and SUN to anticipate and adequately respond to evolving customer expectations and requirements, successfully develop and integrate technologies and systems necessary to offer integrated solutions that meet those requirements; and effectively coordinate and manage joint activities (including sales, marketing, development, implementation and support) in order to deliver those solutions across a diversified and expanded user base together with such other risks and uncertainties as are detailed from time to time in reports filed by PTC with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including PTC's most recent reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q. --------------------------------------------- For any more information, please contact : Catherine Boulon Sun Microsystems Tél : 01 30 67 55 61 cboulon@France.sun.com Muriel Martin Réflexion Publique Tél : 01 55 21 01 48 murielm@comvitamine.fr Fabien Darrigues Réflexion Publique Tél :01 55 21 01 56 fabiend@comvitamine.fr