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News Release

Autodesk's GIS Division Announces Global Advisory Customer Council

Jul 19, 2002
SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Jul 19, 2002 (BUSINESS WIRE) --

Division Also Appoints Award-Winning Senior Director of Marketing to Lead Product Management, Marketing, and Business Development

Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq:ADSK), the world's leading design software and digital content company, today formally announced the formation of a Global GIS Customer Council (GCC) to provide a collective customer voice to integrate customer needs with Autodesk GIS products, services, and strategic direction worldwide. Autodesk also announced it has appointed Ernesto Diaz senior director of marketing for the GIS Solutions Division.

    Global GIS Customer Council
The GCC consists of 15 global Autodesk customers from the mapping, civil design, and infrastructure management markets in Brazil, England, France, Germany, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, and the United States. The GCC plans to meet annually at Autodesk University where council members will provide professional insight from their respective markets. Personal interaction also occurs throughout the year on an informal basis.

"In the GIS division at Autodesk, we firmly believe that our customers have a big role to play in the shaping of product and strategic direction," said Larry Diamond, vice president of Autodesk's GIS Division. "The GCC provides an open forum for our customers to offer insight, direction, and recommendations from the user perspective, information which ultimately helps us deliver better software to the market."

    Ernesto Diaz
In his new role as Senior Director of Marketing for the GIS Solutions Division, Diaz will work closely with Diamond and the GCC to lead the GIS product management, industry and product marketing, and business development teams. Diaz, who has extensive experience managing global vendor and partner relationships, joins Autodesk from Lucent Technologies, Inc., where he was the director of product and offer management for the company's mobility business. At Lucent, Diaz led the operations of three cross-functional teams accountable for product and strategic marketing management for new product introduction in the United States and Europe.

Diaz has extensive experience in the telecommunications industry, including work as a systems engineer at AT&T International. Diaz began his career in Venezuela in 1988 as a project engineer for Bechtel. During his career, Diaz has received numerous awards, including the Bell Labs President's Silver Award for outstanding innovation and technical excellence and the Lucent Award for Excellence for outstanding leadership and ethics.

Diaz holds a Bachelors of Science in Electrical Engineering from the Universidad Simon Bolivar in Venezuela, where his thesis won a National Prize (3rd place in the Telecommunications Area), and received his Industrial Engineering Professional Certification for the European Union from the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid in Spain. He is also a graduate of the Berkeley Executive Program at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

    About Autodesk
Founded in 1982, Autodesk, Inc., is the world's leading design and digital media creation, management, and distribution company. The company serves a diverse portfolio of markets, including building design, geographic information systems, manufacturing, digital media, and wireless data services. By delivering tools that foster innovation and creativity, Autodesk helps customers throughout the value chain use digital design data to work better, faster, and smarter. For more information about the company, see www.autodesk.com.

Autodesk is a registered trademark of Autodesk, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

CONTACT:          Autodesk
                  Eric Sutphin, 415/507-6658
                  eric.sutphin@autodesk.com

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