Arena Solutions Signs 100th Customer

Sales of Arena PLM Continue to Accelerate

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., December 1, 2003 — Arena Solutions, Inc., the leading provider of online Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, today announced a major company milestone of having signed its 100th customer. The company’s flagship product, Arena PLM, is now being used by more than 100 manufacturers in a variety of industries, including electronics, medical devices, consumer products, automotive suppliers, and industrial equipment. Recent customers include Align Technology (medical devices), Bio-Imaging Research (imaging, diagnostic and inspection equipment), Caymas Systems (networking), Chelsio Communications (communication subsystems), Radio Systems (consumer products), Roku Labs (consumer electronics), Sierra Wireless (wireless communications), Stanford University (aerospace), and Superlift Suspensions (automotive).

“This is an exciting milestone for Arena Solutions,” said Michael Topolovac, chief executive officer of Arena Solutions. “Over the past two years, we have succeeded in building an impressive customer list, increasing our average order size, and recording double-digit increases in sales each quarter, making us the fastest growing PLM company today and the de facto PLM standard for mid-tier manufacturers. Like salesforce.com, we’ve been able to leverage a new business model -- the delivery of enterprise-class software as a service via the Internet. This means we can provide our customers with a powerful PLM solution virtually instantaneously -- at low cost and even lower risk.”

Since launching in June 2001, the Arena PLM application has achieved swift market acceptance. Its web-native architecture enables customers to deploy the software in a matter of days -- and begin seeing the return on their investment instantly. OEMs and their designated partners and suppliers have secure, universal accessibility to the application: they can use it anytime, from anywhere in the world where there is a web browser and Internet connection. The Arena PLM delivery model lets customers pilot the application with minimal investment to validate its measurable benefits. The architecture also means companies using Arena PLM receive ongoing automatic software upgrades, so customers benefit immediately as major new feature sets, ongoing functionality and usability enhancements are seamlessly introduced.

“We went with Arena PLM because it helped us get our products to market faster by managing complex bills of materials (BOMs) and reducing mistakes,” said Chris Mainini, vice president of product development of Radio Systems, manufacturers of the PetSafe product line. “With two development sites, five contract manufacturers, and a large number of suppliers, we needed a global system to keep everyone synchronized real-time and grow our business. We used to use a homegrown database to manage BOMs, but we realized the IT support to manage the system had become disproportionate to its benefits. The company was growing and the complexity of our new products increasing. With more people getting involved in development and operations, I needed to institute a better system quickly. Arena PLM has all the functionality we need, is a fully hosted, zero-IT solution, and is very intuitive to learn. Arena PLM was the right solution for us.”

Bill Robertson, chief operating officer of Arena Solutions, explains, “Our success is largely due to our commitment to understand our customers’ biggest challenges and pain points and then provide them with a PLM solution that allows them to be more competitive in an environment of ever accelerating time-to-market and cost reduction pressures. Arena PLM offers comprehensive functionality designed for OEMs that outsource manufacturing. Our web-native architecture and subscription model eliminates the hassles and risks of client-server solutions. We get customers up and running quickly -- at an affordable price. If you look at all these factors, it’s easy to understand why we’re seeing such strong adoption.”

About Arena Solutions
Arena Solutions is the leading provider of on–demand (SaaS) product lifecycle management solutions for manufacturing companies of all sizes. As the only true on–demand, secure Internet–based PLM service, Arena PLM provides a superior alternative to complicated, lengthy and expensive traditional PLM software deployments. Through its award–winning service, Arena enables product manufacturers and their global supply chains to streamline outsourcing, improve operational efficiencies, and speed time–to–market. Arena PLM has been adopted by more than 15,000 users across companies at all stages of development, including industry leaders Foundry Networks, Color Kinetics, Intuit, Sierra Wireless, Align Technology and more.

Arena Solutions’ market–changing approach to PLM has received significant recognition in the industry, including Manufacturing Business Technology’s Top 40 Emerging Vendors, the Supply & Demand Chain Executive 100, Industry Week’s “Technology of the Year – Notable Innovators” and Start Magazine’s “Hottest” Companies.

Founded in February 2000, Arena Solutions is headquartered in Foster City, California. For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.arenasolutions.com.

Contact:
Jennifer Bomze
media@arenasolutions.com
1.650.513.3539

Arena PLM is a trademark of Arena Solutions, Inc. Other product and company names are the property of their respective holders.