REDMOND, Wash., and KFAR SABA, Israel, Oct. 13, 2004 —
— Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: “MSFT”) and SmarTeam Corporation Ltd., a Dassault Systmes company (Nasdaq: DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), today announced plans by KAB Seating Ltd. of the United Kingdom to extend its SMARTEAM® Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution, based on Microsoft® technologies, to interoperate with the Microsoft Business Solutions–Axapta®
enterprise resource planning (ERP) product, one of Microsoft’s business application suites. The mobile machinery and automotive supplier’s use of SMARTEAM PLM and Microsoft technologies will be showcased at ECF, Oct. 12–14, in Paris.
KAB Seating, a leading global tier-one supplier of performance seating for off-road vehicles to major international original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), is a long-standing customer of SMARTEAM PLM, built on Microsoft SQL Server (TM) , and uses Microsoft technology as its corporate platform. KAB plans to merge its PLM, ERP and supplier processes across the extended enterprise, maximizing its competitive advantage while reducing costs and business risk.
“We have deployed SMARTEAM PLM widely, managing all our engineering data across product development, sales and throughout our organization,” said Dave Farrar, manufacturing systems manager at KAB. “On top of our SMARTEAM success, it was only natural for us to turn to Microsoft Axapta as we extend our IT strategy into manufacturing.” A pilot project conducted by KAB proved strong technological compatibility between the two systems.
SmarTeam is a longtime leader in leveraging Microsoft technology, building its enterprise solutions on Microsoft .NET technologies — including Windows Server (TM) 2003, SQL Server, BizTalk® Server and Active Directory® directory service — to provide high availability, scalability, performance, enhanced security and support for open standards. Integrating with key Microsoft productivity products — including Microsoft Office, Project and SharePoint®
Portal Server — SMARTEAM delivers rapidly customizable solutions that address today’s strategic manufacturing needs.
“Microsoft technology is positioned to become the standard across the manufacturing industry,” said Charles Johnson, worldwide managing director of manufacturing industry solutions at Microsoft. “By recognizing the need to unlock data trapped in disparate systems, SmarTeam has built on Microsoft’s integrated platform to provide manufacturing customers with powerful PLM solutions that optimize and automate processes while improving communication and collaboration across the enterprise.”
“SmarTeam embraced Microsoft’s technology and strategic vision long before PLM became a household term, driving mainstream PLM adoption by providing highly scalable solutions that are easy to implement and use,” said Avinoam Nowogrodski, CEO, SmarTeam. “KAB’s expanding use of SMARTEAM PLM and Microsoft Axapta is an excellent example of how this technology bond brings exceptional solutions value to the manufacturing community.”
About KAB Seating
KAB Seating specializes in the manufacture and supply of comfortable, practical work seats for various types of vehicles. Its world leader status comes from many years of experience within seat design, development and production. It supplies seating to the commercial, construction, agricultural, industrial, mining, bus/coach and mobility sectors. On the basis of this vast experience, together with state-of-the-art technology and manufacturing techniques, KAB Seating has also developed a range of Office Work chairs. KAB Seating has developed a worldwide distribution network. It also has subsidiaries in Sweden, Belgium, Australia and North America and a sales/support office in France. KAB Seating products are exported worldwide and fitted as original equipment by many major manufacturers. For more information, visit http://www.kabseating.com .
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.
About SmarTeam
SmarTeam Corporation Ltd. develops, markets and supports rapidly implemented, yet totally customizable, product lifecycle collaboration solutions that drive efficiency, quality and responsiveness for customer-centric organizations and their value chains. Founded in 1995, SmarTeam is one of the fastest-growing companies in the PLM market, with more than 3,000 customers worldwide and a broad solutions portfolio that enables manufacturing organizations and their supply chains to efficiently manage and collaborate on product information from concept through retirement. SmarTeam’s solutions help companies gain improvements in product quality, reduce costs, expedite project turnaround, comply with industry standards, and shorten time to market. SMARTEAM is a Dassault Systmes and IBM PLM solution and is delivered by world-class resellers on every continent. For more information, visit http://www.smarteam.com .
About Dassault Systmes
As world leader in PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) solutions, the Dassault Systmes group brings value to more than 65,000 customers in 80 countries. A pioneer in the 3-D software market since 1981, Dassault Systmes develops and markets PLM application software and services that support industrial processes and provide a 3-D vision of the entire life cycle of products from conception to maintenance. Its offering includes integrated PLM solutions for product development (CATIA® , ENOVIA® , DELMIA (TM) , SMARTEAM), mainstream product design tools (SolidWorks® ), and 3-D components (ACIS®
) from Spatial Corp. Dassault Systmes is listed on the Nasdaq (DASTY) and Euronext Paris (#13065, DSY.PA) stock exchanges. For more information, visit http://www.3ds.com .
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