Press Releases

PTC Demonstrates New Level of Design Chain Collaboration Based on Groove Networks Technology

First in Product Lifecycle Management Market to Provide Cross-firewall, Real-time Collaboration

NEEDHAM, Mass. and BEVERLY, Mass. - February 13, 2002 - At an event held this week in Boston for financial and market analysts, PTC(r) (Nasdaq: PMTC), The Product Development Company(tm), together with Groove Networks(tm) Inc., the leading provider of decentralized software for secure business collaboration, demonstrated a new way of working collaboratively. This comprehensive solution gives product engineers unprecedented capabilities for collaborative design with partners, suppliers and customers. By embedding Groove(r) Networks within its collaboration infrastructure, PTC will provide secure, cross-company, person-to-person interaction within the context of its existing applications, enabling greater productivity in the product development process.

"Having the ability to collaborate and communicate with our customers and suppliers in real time will become an indispensable tool in developing products for manufacturing. It will allow us to meet the demands of our customer by getting us involved in the design process earlier," said Aaron Spicer, mold design engineer, Tech Tool and Molded Plastics. "PTC is very knowledgeable about the product development process and works tirelessly to help companies build better products. By embedding the Groove Networks into its products, PTC continues to illustrate its commitment to providing companies the tools to work smarter and more efficiently."

The unique firewall-transparent, real-time collaboration capabilities of Groove allow product engineers to participate in virtual brainstorming, collaborative authoring, and product design reviews with customers, partners and suppliers. The results are reduced need for travel, accelerated decision-making processes, and faster time-to-market.

"In simpler times, people collaborated by sitting next to each other and working side-by-side," said James Heppelmann, PTC's executive vice president software solutions and chief technology officer. "We've recreated this style of working even though team members today are dispersed both geographically and organizationally by accommodating the ability to work across firewalls without compromising security."

"PTC has more than 33,000 product-design customers worldwide, and time to market is a critical success factor for each of them," said Ray Ozzie, CEO of Groove Networks. "As we've worked together, we've learned that the design process for PTC's customers is becoming increasingly decentralized, with a greater degree of outsourcing to component suppliers. While outsourcing can reduce near-term costs and improve flexibility, it can also increase the cost of coordination. By incorporating the secure, decentralized collaboration capabilities of Groove within its solutions, PTC is reducing that cost of coordination and further helping its customers maintain competitive advantage through superior product design."

As part of the next release PTC intends to deliver enhanced collaboration functionality within PTC's Pro/ENGINEER(r) and Windchill ProductView(tm) applications. By embedding Groove Networks within its existing applications, PTC will give its users the ability to securely:

* Collaborate in real time with others in the extended enterprise
* Observe each other's work and share control of sessions
* Send invitations to desired users
* Access a conference session
* Chat with one another
* Share directories, eliminating the need to zip and email models, and
* Conduct online design reviews.

About PTC
PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC) develops, markets, and supports software solutions that help manufacturers get superior products to market before their competitors. PTC is the world's largest software company with a total commitment to product development. The company services more than 33,000 customers worldwide. Further information on PTC is available at http://www.ptc.com.

About Groove Networks
Founded in October 1997 and headquartered in Beverly, Mass., Groove Networks Inc. provides software and services that enable organizations to extend critical business
processes, projects and meetings across time, space and organizational boundaries. More information about Groove Networks can be found at http://www.groove.net. More information about enterprise sales can be found at http://www.groove.net/products/enterprise/.


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 risks and uncertainties include PTC's ability to integrate the Groove and PTC technologies, anticipate and adequately respond to evolving customer requirements and work successfully with third parties (including Groove Networks) to deliver, implement and support products and services that meet those requirements; our ability to compete successfully in the MCAD industry with our design solutions and stabilize our Design license revenue; the success of our efforts to differentiate our design solution offerings by providing collaboration tools and enhancing synergies with our Windchill technology; the success of our cost reduction initiatives in improving operating margins in 2002; and the effects of a weakening economy which may impact the overall demand for software and related services together with such other risks and uncertainties as are detailed from time to time in reports filed by PTC with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including PTC's most recent reports on Form 10-K and
10-Q.

PTC and its logo, The Product Development Company, Product Development Means Business, Create Collaborate Control, Pro/ENGINEER, ProductView, Windchill, and all PTC product names and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Parametric Technology Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries.

Groove Networks is a trademark, and Groove is a registered trademark of Groove Networks, Inc. in the United States and in other countries.


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