Press Releases

IDEO Selects bom.com for More Efficient Collaboration with Its Clients

World’s Largest Innovation and Design Firm Negotiates Major Deal to Implement bom.com

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., November 19, 2001 — bom.com today announced that IDEO, the world’s largest innovation and design firm, has finalized a major deal to implement bom.com. IDEO plans to streamline its development process with bom.com, a web-native software application that lets companies centralize their product data around a bill-of-materials (BOM) framework. bom.com will enable greater collaboration across the IDEO design chain by providing everyone involved with a given product — internal teams, clients and suppliers — real-time access to the same set of information. IDEO joins a rapidly growing network of OEMs and design consultancies that have chosen bom.com for their collaborative engineering and product data management needs.

“The web-native architecture of bom.com will make it possible for our geographically dispersed design and manufacturing teams to work together seamlessly,” said David Strong, chief financial officer at IDEO. “bom.com is an affordable solution that is easy to implement and easy to use. The tool’s robust functionality will greatly enhance the service we provide our clients.”

bom.com initiated a relationship with IDEO when it sought out the firm’s feedback early in the development of its own product. Over the course of several months, IDEO provided valuable insights that contributed to the overall functionality and usability of bom.com. As the application took shape, IDEO saw that bom.com could benefit its own organization by improving internal collaboration and providing an easy, secure way for engineers and project managers to share designs with clients. This led to the current deal with bom.com.

“When we approached IDEO initially, it was because we admired not only the quality of the firm’s designs, but also its approach to the design process,” said Michael Topolovac, chief executive officer and co-founder of bom.com. “We were rewarded with invaluable input at a key stage in the development of bom.com. Now I am excited to welcome this legendary design firm as a customer.”

The design process at IDEO involves a complex array of internal design studios, clients, contract manufacturers and other suppliers. With bom.com, IDEO will be able to create a private and secure workspace for each product in development, thus enabling the firm to manage projects for multiple clients, with no risk of compromising proprietary data. When a design is complete, IDEO can hand off complete specifications, documentation and sourcing information simply by turning over the project workspace to the client. The firm also plans to use the bom.com Supplier Access module, which will allow it to provide individual suppliers with private windows into relevant product data.

For design consultancies like IDEO, bom.com addresses the challenges associated with short product development cycles, communication with multiple partners during the design process, outsourced manufacturing and the need to hand off a clean BOM as the final deliverable to clients. Any business involved in the development of complex products can enjoy similar benefits from using bom.com.

About IDEO
IDEO is a world leader in the user-centered design of products, services, and environments. Having developed thousands of products for clients in dozens of industries, IDEO defines and develops new futures for industry leaders and start-ups alike. IDEO has won more design awards than any other firm of its kind and employs approximately 400 people in offices serving North America, Europe, and Asia. Please visit us at www.ideo.com.

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:
Cindi Goodsell
cgoodsell@arenasolutions.com
1.510.479.9015

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