NEEDHAM, Mass., July 16 /PRNewswire/ -- In a move that empowers Pro/ENGINEER® customers to easily collaborate on product designs over the Internet, PTC® (Nasdaq: PMTC), the product development company? today announced a new service, called Pro/COLLABORATE?. With a view that Web- based collaboration on product design is an increasingly integral part of mechanical computer aided design (MCAD) this Net-native collaboration service will be free of charge to maintenance-paying Pro/ENGINEER users, allowing them to create virtual Web-based project workspaces and invite anyone in the world to work collaboratively with them. This service, already successfully in use by trial customers, can be accessed at www.ProCOLLABORATE.com and will be generally available in August.
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Pro/COLLABORATE allows collaboration via the Internet between engineers and others in the design chain. In today\'s complex environment, engineers need flexible collaboration tools to share their work with globally dispersed colleagues, both in engineering and in other functions within the organization such as marketing, quality assurance, and customer support. Pro/COLLABORATE also allows design engineers to collaborate across firewalls with suppliers, manufacturing partners, and customers to get valuable input into the design process. Effective collaboration in the design process can lead to decreases in time to market, improved product quality, and reduced overhead costs.
Collaboration on product design and life cycle management via the Internet is also known as Collaborative Product Commerce or CPC.(1) With PTC\'s introduction of Pro/COLLABORATE, Net-native collaboration has been integrated with Pro/ENGINEER, the company\'s flagship product for mechanical computer- aided design. PTC is the first company we know of to offer a free Internet collaboration service to its installed base of CAD users, said Bruce Jenkins, executive vice president of Daratech, Inc. This capability is critical for manufacturers working to gain time-to-market advantage and boost product quality while controlling design, production and engineering-change costs.
The Internet is making collaboration easier than ever before and it is only natural that Pro/ENGINEER evolve to leverage that capability to help our end users be more effective in their work, said Jim Heppelmann, chief technology officer and executive vice president, PTC software solutions Pro/COLLABORATE demonstrates PTC\'s commitment to open collaboration and providing the best in both design authoring and collaboration solutions.
Key features of Pro/COLLABORATE allow users to:
-- Create Web-based collaborative workspaces outside of their firewall
-- Publish Pro/ENGINEER parts, drawings, and assemblies directly from
Pro/ENGINEER, into the workspace, and specify access controls
-- Publish additional supporting documentation and specifications to the
workspace
-- Share project information with non-engineers, suppliers, customers, and
partners by inviting cross-functional and cross-organizational team
members to the workspace even if they are not Pro/ENGINEER users
-- Enable team members to visualize, interrogate, and markup a lightweight
viewable of the Pro/ENGINEER data and store it back into the workspace.
-- Monitor design information using subscription and notification tools
-- Track and exchange ideas with discussion forums
-- Obtain quick access to the tool through the use of on-line terms and
conditions and a standard as-is service plan
Currently, over 30,000 companies representing over a quarter of a million users create world-class products using Pro/ENGINEER software tools. Pro/COLLABORATE is a Web-based service hosted by PTC, and as such Pro/ENGINEER end users need only to have a Web browser to have access to the collaboration service. Team members invited to collaborate by Pro/ENGINEER users do not have to have Pro/ENGINEER to be involved in the collaboration. Visit www.ProCOLLABORATE.com now to register.
Pro/COLLABORATE is powered by Windchill® ProjectLink?, PTC\'s solution that advances the ability of dispersed project teams to work on highly iterative design projects in a Net-native workspace. Windchill ProjectLink was introduced in February 2001 and has been embraced by dozens of customers, including Exostar, Ingersoll-Rand, and TRW. Pro/COLLABORATE extends a selection of Windchill ProjectLink features to Pro/ENGINEER users free of charge to facilitate their Internet-based collaboration efforts. The introduction of Pro/COLLABORATE demonstrates the synergy between Pro/ENGINEER and Windchill as well as PTC\'s commitment, as the product development company, to meeting customers\' needs such as global design collaboration.
About PTC
PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC) develops, markets, and supports software solutions and services 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
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 Internet\'s continued development as a viable transactional medium and commercial marketplace, PTC\'s successful development and integration of the technology necessary to offer tools suitable for exchanges, portals, and other forms of collaboration net-marketplaces that adequately respond to evolving customer requirements, and PTC\'s ability to effectively create the infrastructure and management framework necessary to support hosted collaboration solutions, 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.
PTC, The Product Development Company, Pro/COLLABORATE, Pro/ENGINEER, Windchill, Windchill ProjectLink and all PTC product names and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Parametric Technology Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries.
(1) The Aberdeen Group in its 2000 report titled Beating the Competition with Collaborative Product Commerce estimates that CPC will become a $20 billion market by 2003, and a nearly $50 billion market by 2005.
For more information, please contact:
Maria Doyle
PTC
781-370-5508
madoyle@ptc.com
SOURCE PTC
-0- 07/16/2001
/CONTACT: Maria Doyle of PTC, 781-370-5508, madoyle@ptc.com/
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