SAN RAFAEL, Calif. & DALLAS, Mar 4, 2003 (BUSINESS WIRE) --

Wyndham Hotels, City of Fort Worth and The Dimension Group Find Improved Information Management and Streamlined Collaboration Deliver Measurable Results

A growing and diverse number of construction and design organizations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area -- including an international resort developer, a design and construction services firm and a municipal design and build authority -- are all improving communication, cutting project costs and boosting productivity with the Buzzsaw project collaboration service from Autodesk, Inc. (Nasdaq:ADSK), the world's leading design and digital content creation company. Wyndham International, Inc., the Fort Worth Facilities Management Division and The Dimension Group have all recently announced new initiatives with Buzzsaw, or reported results such as return on investment or dollar cost savings stemming from use of the Buzzsaw service. Including these three entities, the number of Texas-based Buzzsaw customers has surged to 30, from architects, general contractors and specialty contractors to owner/developers, engineering firms and specialized services providers.

"Not only a growing number, but a wider diversity of design and build organizations in the Dallas/Fort Worth market and across Texas are realizing the power of Buzzsaw to improve processes, slash costs and drive new business. What we're seeing is a real validation of our strategy to integrate a group of offerings that can enable customers to effectively manage data through the entire project lifecycle," said Amar Hanspal, senior director, Autodesk Building Collaboration Services. The Autodesk Buzzsaw online project collaboration environment integrates a secure project hosting service with CAD-related software, building information modeling solutions, and effective service offerings from industry leaders. With this powerful service it's easy to connect entire project teams anytime, regardless of organizational or geographical boundaries.

A design and construction services company that specializes in retail gasoline and convenience stores, The Dimension Group has found that with the Buzzsaw service it can increase its workload without bringing on new personnel. "Autodesk Buzzsaw is helping The Dimension Group take its business to the next level," said Carlos Salinas, project manager with Dimension. "When we were chosen by Trammel Crow to convert more than 150 gasoline/retail sites across Texas and Oklahoma from the Texaco to the Shell brand, the volume of calls and questions we received daily from subcontractors and partners was almost overwhelming. We thought we would have to hire new people to handle the work. But by using Buzzsaw to share materials and communicate with the whole team, we cut calls by 80 percent, freeing up our people to concentrate on essential tasks and boosting productivity considerably."

Wyndham International plans and executes between 2,400 and 3,000 individual capital projects annually at its luxury hotel and resort accommodations throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe. "Buzzsaw's ability to enhance team collaboration and speed the distribution of data and design materials across the company and beyond have lowered our costs by a significant margin -- outlays for photocopying of status reports alone have declined by $36,000 this year," said Richard Senechal, AIA, Wyndham's senior vice president of design and construction. "Perhaps more importantly, Buzzsaw has enabled us to automate our annual capital planning process. We have eliminated nearly all accompanying paperwork -- dozens of reports containing hundreds of pages -- and shortened the distribution process from approximately three weeks to three days."

The Facilities Management Division of Fort Worth's Department of Transportation and Public Works oversees the maintenance, repair and construction of most of the city's buildings, including libraries, parks, and fire and police stations. The division implemented the Buzzsaw collaboration service in order to provide easy access to plans and specifications for architectural facility bid documents. "Within a few months of implementing Buzzsaw we had 50 contractors, eleven architects, four plan houses, two printers and more than a dozen city staffers using our site to share plans, specs and other materials," said Mike Mathews, head of the Architectural Services Section of the Facilities Management Division. "Buzzsaw is proving to be a valuable way to reduce printing costs for us and our contractors. Now, everyone can investigate the details of a project without driving to a plan house or the city's plans desk. We're finding that Buzzsaw also is great for sharing meeting minutes, contracts and other project files among our teams."

Autodesk Buzzsaw is an online collaboration service that allows building design and construction professionals to store, manage, and share project documents from any Internet connection--thus enhancing team productivity, helping to reduce costs and enabling the lifecycle management of a project. A recent study by market research firm the Hurwitz Group* revealed the average annual ROI for a sample group of Buzzsaw customers of 370 percent, and a break-even timeline on total cost of ownership of two to three months from implementation of the service.

About The Dimension Group

Based in Dallas, Texas, The Dimension Group offers complete design and construction services for companies in the retail gasoline and convenience store market. From start to finish, Dimension does it all: it develops engineering and architectural plans, coordinates the entire permit process, and manages construction. Visit The Dimension Group at www.dimensiongrp.com.

About Wyndham International

Wyndham International, Inc. offers upscale and luxury hotel and resort accommodations through proprietary lodging brands and a management services division. Based in Dallas, Wyndham owns, leases, manages and franchises hotels and resorts in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe. For more information, visit www.wyndham.com. For reservations, call 800-WYNDHAM.

About the Forth Worth Facilities Management Division

The Facilities Management Division of the Fort Worth Transportation and Public Works Department designs, constructs, repairs and maintains city facilities. Facilities Management employees comprise a wide spectrum of craft, professional and technical skills and knowledge. The division consists of professional engineers, registered architects, construction managers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, painters, HVAC technicians, roofers, building equipment operators, cabinetmakers, and welders. It is responsible for Fort Worth's fire stations, community centers, police stations, libraries, and many other city facilities. It also is responsible for maintaining and managing the city's parking facilities. Visit the Facilities Management Division at http://ci.fort-worth.tx.us/tpw/FacilitiesMgmt.htm

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. For more information about the company, see www.autodesk.com. For information about the Buzzsaw service, visit the product site at www.autodesk.com/buzzsaw.

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

* For the research study, The Hurwitz Group screened and interviewed 50 Autodesk Buzzsaw customers by telephone and/or via Web-based survey regarding the costs associated with Buzzsaw as well as the benefits achieved. Responding firms represented all the major segments or disciplines within the building design and construction industry, including architectural and engineering firms, contractors and owners/developers. Individual respondents included Buzzsaw end users such as project managers and CAD managers, as well as senior IT personnel such as CIOs, CTOs and IT managers.

CONTACT:          Autodesk, Inc.
                  Gabrielle Friedly, 415/356-0741
                  gabrielle.friedly@autodesk.com

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