PTC Reduces Complexity of Product Development Process with Release of Windchill 8.0; New...

NEEDHAM, Mass. -- PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC), the Product Development Company(TM), today announced the availability of Windchill(R) 8.0, a major release of PTC's data management and collaboration software. Windchill 8.0 delivers significant enhancements that simplify product development, even as manufacturing

companies find their processes becoming more complex. Windchill is a major component of the integral PTC(R) Product Development System, which helps manufacturing companies optimize product development so they can successfully achieve their business objectives. With Windchill 8.0, the Product Development System is simpler, more powerful and more scalable than ever.

"In recent years, product development has become increasingly complex. Few, if any, environments involve a single CAD tool, dealing with only mechanical data, operating in a sole location," suggested Gisela Wilson, Analyst of PLM Solutions at international market research firm IDC. "Now, more than ever, PLM architecture is a key enabler for companies which seek to excel in the typically complex environments of today. With the release of Windchill 8.0, and its unification of workgroup and enterprise data management platforms, PTC provides an integral and scalable PLM architecture that will allow companies to better manage their product development processes."

The simplified product data management environment of Windchill 8.0 will help customers speed time-to-market, increase product quality, and reduce product and product development costs. In addition to the core Windchill collaboration and data management capabilities customers enjoy today, key features of the new release include:

--Greatly improved local area network (LAN) performance over previous Windchill releases. Example results, delivered through rigorous performance testing, reveal time improvements including: searching (83%), creating/checking-in documents (67%), and rendering product structures (94%)

--Improved heterogeneous mechanical and electronic computer-aided design (MCAD and ECAD) data management capabilities and new source code configuration management capabilities for Rational ClearCase to improve product development productivity

--Superior Pro/ENGINEER(R) data management capabilities - With the introduction of Pro/INTRALINK(R) 8.0, based on Windchill, customers now enjoy best-in-class Pro/ENGINEER data management on an architecture that supports their evolving and demanding distributed product development environment. This architecture unification spans from engineering through the extended enterprise, removing the customer burden of synchronizing multiple workgroup and enterprise data management systems and databases (see related press release issued June 6, 2005)

--Engineering process improvements to support rapid configuration of lifecycle, change management, and revise behaviors according to company standards

--Enhanced configuration management tools that improve usability and allow rapid development of product variants

--Integral parts classification and reuse, to reduce new part number proliferation and to enable more efficient product design

--New capabilities in defining and classifying approved manufacturer lists (AML) and approved vendor lists (AVL). Along with corresponding supplier management capabilities, these enhancements enable more intelligent sourcing decisions

--Expanded capabilities in document management, search, electronic signatures and subscriptions to improve usability and productivity

"Our customers want to focus on creating innovative high-quality products on-time and on-budget, not on making special accommodations for distributed development sites, or on learning how to make their 3D models work across multiple data management systems," said Jim Heppelmann, executive vice president and chief product officer of PTC. "This is why PTC emphasized heterogeneous CAD data management with this new product release. Windchill 8.0 delivers the industry's only integral system architecture that includes capabilities to streamline engineering workgroup tasks and automate enterprise product development processes. Increasingly, customers are demanding this level of simplicity from all product lifecycle management vendors, but it is only a reality today at PTC."

"As part of a quality-focused manufacturing company consisting of 6 divisions operating across 30 development sites, Rheem has a massive information challenge," notes Jason Baggett, Senior Draftsman at Rheem Manufacturing. "In order to provide world-class products and service, we must ensure that all parties can access accurate product data. For some sites, this entails detailed designs; for others, simple visualizations are sufficient. Windchill PDMLink(TM) 8.0 is a very compelling solution for precisely this reason. Its embedded visualization capabilities and superior WAN performance enable us to extend product information - in the relevant forms - to all team members, from engineering to sales and service."

New Optional Windchill Modules

PTC has also introduced new Windchill modules that add capabilities to standard Windchill solutions:

--Windchill PartsLink(TM) Classification and Reuse, now an integral module of Windchill PDMLink, provides the ability to load and manage a classification structure, classify parts, and create a high-speed classification-based search. This helps customers reduce product cost by controlling part number proliferation, and lowers development cost through comprehensive searching and design reuse

--Windchill Archive, a new optional module of Windchill PDMLink, allows users to collect, store, delete and restore documents and metadata to meet regulatory requirements and improve application or hardware performance. This is particularly important to industries such as Aerospace & Defense or Medical Products, where regulatory compliance is a mandatory part of doing business

--Windchill Enterprise Systems Integration (ESI), the module for bi-directional integration between Windchill PDMLink and ERP systems, now supports Oracle Manufacturing in addition to SAP. Windchill ESI synchronizes parts, documents, bill of material (BOM) structures, engineering change notifications, and product configurations between disparate enterprise applications. Windchill ESI enables customers to improve the quality of product data, reduce errors and support decisions made during the processes of product development and manufacturing

Windchill 8.0 Upgrades and Product Availability

Active Windchill customers will receive the new release free of charge under their current maintenance coverage. The modular nature of Windchill makes PLM solutions approachable for companies of all sizes. PTC delivers a wide range of packaged service offerings for implementation, deployment and education to accelerate time-to-value and lower risk. And for small and medium companies, Windchill PDMLink and Windchill ProjectLink may be deployed in a hosted environment through PTC(R) PLM On Demand, a joint offering from PTC and IBM.

Windchill 8.0 will be available later this month and can be licensed through PTC or authorized resellers. For more information on Windchill, please visit the Windchill product pages on www.ptc.com.

About PTC

PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC) provides leading Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software solutions to more than 35,000 companies worldwide. PTC customers include many of the world's most innovative manufacturing companies in the aerospace & defense, automotive, consumer, electronics & high technology, industrial equipment and medical products industries. PTC is included in the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 indices. For more information on PTC, please visit 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 include: the success of our initiatives to facilitate our customer's understanding of the benefits of our integral PLM solutions, including return on investment and value creation; Our ability to successfully develop, integrate and support the technology necessary to deliver a robust integral product development system that anticipate and adequately respond to evolving customer requirements; the success of our partnering, distribution and customer satisfaction initiatives; as well as other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in reports filed by PTC with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's most recent reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q.

PTC, the PTC logo, Pro/ENGINEER, Pro/INTRALINK, Windchill, Windchill ProjectLink and Windchill PDMLink are trademarks or registered trademarks of Parametric Technology Corporation. IBM is a registered trademark of IBM Corp.