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On
May 15, 2007, Oracle announced that it has entered into an agreement to
acquire Agile, a leading provider of product lifecycle management (PLM)
software solutions. We expect the transaction to close in July 2007,
subject to stockholder and regulatory approval and other customary
closing conditions. Until the deal closes, each company will continue
to operate independently, and it is business as usual.
Agile’s
PLM solutions drive the product innovation and introduction process in
a variety of industries, including high-tech, life sciences, industrial
manufacturing and consumer packaged goods. These solutions help Agile’s
1,250 global PLM customers make better product portfolio decisions,
collaborate across design and supply chain partners, accelerate new
product introduction and manage compliance. In addition, through its
Cimmetry Systems subsidiary, Agile has over 10,000 customers and is the
industry standard for collaborative visualization.
As
PLM evolves into an enterprise-wide discipline, it must span multiple
product design systems, interact with a wide-range of enterprise
applications and manage the complete product lifecycle from concept and
design, to production, sales and service. The combination of Agile’s
best in class PLM solutions, together with Oracle’s leading solutions
in CRM, SCM and ERP will create a best-in-class, integrated, enterprise
PLM solution. Additionally, Oracle’s commitment to open,
standards-based integration will enable users of other, non-Oracle
enterprise applications to utilize Agile’s best-in-class capabilities.
The anticipated benefits to our customers include:
- Manage
product information, processes, and decisions, across the lifecycle and
across the global product network of design and supply chain partners
- Manage product information across multiple design systems, with an agnostic approach to CAD and other authoring systems
- Fully
integrate with customer enterprise architecture - manufacturing, supply
chain, fulfillment, service and customer - leveraging existing IT
investments
- Take advantage of proven 3rd party connectors that support integration with Oracle Applications and with SAP
- Reduce total cost of ownership while increasing customers’ ability to operate an integrated, information driven enterprise
Oracle
plans to continue to sell and support Agile products as standalone and
as an integrated solution with both Oracle and non-Oracle environments.
Existing customers of Oracle PLM will be supported and protected by
Oracle, and customers will have the option to gain access to Agile’s
best-of-breed product lifecycle management solutions and to their
domain expertise. In addition, Oracle plans to continue its investment
in the complementary product Oracle PIM Data Hub, with a planned
integration to Agile PLM. This further strengthens our product master
data management role in consolidating and managing the enterprise
product record across heterogeneous environments.
We
are excited about this acquisition and how it will strengthen our
ability to provide product lifecycle management across our customers’
enterprises. Oracle representatives will be reaching out to you to
answer any questions that you may have. More information about the
transaction can be found at www.oracle.com/Agile.
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