SAN RAFAEL, Calif. and CAMBRIDGE, England, Oct 14, 2003 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- -- Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADSK), the world's leading digital, 3D software company, and AVEVA (LSE: AVV), the leading supplier of engineering IT systems for the offshore, process and energy industries, today announced a strategic alliance. The alliance brings together AVEVA's leading data-centric plant design management expertise with the superior drafting and documentation capabilities of AutoCAD(R) 2004 software to create extended solutions for larger process plant engineering teams. This new solution will offer an excellent migration path and clear future for users of leading legacy plant design systems.

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The alliance integrates AVEVA's VANTAGE Plant Design Management System (PDMS) and AutoCAD 2004, Autodesk's 2D drafting, detailing, and design tool and flagship product. The combined capabilities will enhance PDMS's automated deliverable production with versatile post-processing, enhanced management, and accelerated delivery of design documentation, ultimately eliminating errors and reducing the time to plant start-up.

"AVEVA has been a supplier of engineering systems to AMEC for more than 20 years and Autodesk products have been widely used in our engineering capabilities," said Steve Trench, manager of engineering for AMEC Group Ltd Downstream Business, a leading international engineering services company. "Bringing together the PDMS 3D design system and AutoCAD design software will help us to improve the quality of our product deliverables for our clients, through increased productivity and flexibility."

PDMS offers advanced, automated drawing production from a plant data model in all leading industry drafting formats. Using the AutoCAD 2004 product's powerful detailing, annotation, sharing, and document management capabilities, AVEVA will offer intelligent, AutoCAD-enhanced deliverables with tight integration to the plant data model. Other PDMS output formats will be unaffected. Autodesk is providing AVEVA with consulting, training, and support through Autodesk Professional Services.

In addition, schematic design will be enhanced by adding the superior drafting capabilities of AutoCAD 2004 to AVEVA's intelligent P&ID application. AVEVA has extensive engineering domain experience in integrated 2D and 3D workflow management, therefore the joint agreement will be able to offer significant productivity increases in this fundamental area.

In addition, the joint development agreement offers the potential for Autodesk and AVEVA to jointly develop integration of PDMS with Autodesk(R) Architectural Desktop and Autodesk Inventor(R) software products to meet the needs of enclosed process plant facilities for use by bio-pharmaceutical companies, as well as tying together the overall plant design process to the design of specialized process plant equipment and machinery.

Integrating for Increased Productivity

The process plant and power design software market is the third largest design software market in the world with annual sales of software and services forecasted at $479 million worldwide in 2003, according to Daratech, Inc. AVEVA and Autodesk will work closely together in development, marketing, and sales to bring this combination of best of breed technologies to this market.

"This is a monumental event for the process plant engineering IT industry as a whole," said Richard Longdon, CEO, AVEVA Group. "As the leaders in data-centric plant design technology, we are extremely excited about an alliance with the leaders in drawing-centric design technology. The cooperation between the best of each world brings a new level of productivity to every aspect of the plant design industry. We look forward to sharing this productivity with our customers."

"Autodesk is committed to rounding out its solution offerings in the process and energy industries," said John Sanders, vice president of Autodesk's Platform Technology Division. "Together with AVEVA, we are able to expand our reach, offering a complete design solution for medium and large process plant engineering and distributed design teams who are working on complex projects."

About PDMS

VANTAGE Plant Design Management System (PDMS) is a data centric, multi-disciplinary solution for 3D process plant design featuring applications and reference data for every engineering discipline. It differs from the conventional 3D design approach in not requiring a drawing engine, but producing graphics from a single, coherent data model of the entire plant. First launched in 1976, PDMS's architecture was designed to evolve. It has been delivered on many leading operating systems -- the current release represents the very latest design and business technology and complete compatibility with previous versions.

About AVEVA Group plc

AVEVA Group plc is one of the world's leading lifecycle engineering IT solutions and services providers to the process and power industries. Formerly known as Cadcentre, the group has a history of groundbreaking engineering IT innovation that spans five decades. It is one of the world's fastest growing solutions providers and the founder of most of today's empirical engineering IT practices.

AVEVA Group plc operates globally through three divisions: AVEVA Consulting, AVEVA Managed Services and AVEVA Engineering IT. A fourth division, AVEVA Solutions, is responsible for product development. The group's technology has been integral to the engineering process of industrial plants with a value in excess of US$500 billion for more than 800 clients across the globe, including leading plant owner/operators and engineering contractors such as 3M, Aker Kvaerner, ALSTOM Power, BASF, DSME, Du Pont, Electricite de France, Foster Wheeler, Hitachi, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, KBR, Uhde, Merck, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Petronas Carigali, Samsung Heavy Industries, and Shell.

About Autodesk

Autodesk is the world's leading design software and digital content company, offering customers progressive business solutions through powerful technology products and services. Autodesk helps customers in the building, manufacturing, infrastructure, digital media, and wireless data services fields increase the value of their digital design data and improve efficiencies across their entire project lifecycle management processes.

NOTE: Autodesk, AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor are registered trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

Occasionally, Autodesk makes statements regarding planned or future development efforts for our existing or new products and services. These statements are not intended to be a promise or guarantee of future delivery of products, services, or features but merely reflect our current plans, which may change. The Company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect any change in circumstances, after the statements are made.

CONTACT: Dawn Van Osdell of Autodesk, +1-415-507-6554, or dawn.van.osdell@autodesk.com; or Justin Roux of AVEVA, +44(0)1223-556655, or Justin.Roux@aveva.com; or US AVEVA, Becky Stevens, +1-713-444-6860, or becky.stevens@virtualmarketing-pr.com, for AVEVA.

SOURCE Autodesk, Inc.

Dawn Van Osdell of Autodesk, +1-415-507-6554, or
dawn.van.osdell@autodesk.com; or Justin Roux of AVEVA, +44(0)1223-556655, or
Justin.Roux@aveva.com; or US AVEVA, Becky Stevens, +1-713-444-6860, or
becky.stevens@virtualmarketing-pr.com, for AVEVA
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