Alibre Design Enables True Collaborative Design for Penn State College of Engineering and International PRESTIGE Consortium of Engineering Schools

Business Wire, March 21, 2002

Business Editors & High Tech Writers

RICHARDSON, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 21, 2002

Alibre announced today that through a $1 million software grant, the College of Engineering at Penn State University will use the company's Alibre Design application.

The university's Engineering Design & Graphics group, which teaches CAD and collaboration tools to all disciplines of engineering at the university, will use Alibre Design for design collaboration projects by student teams. Through the community-based grant, Alibre Design is also provided to the international PRESTIGE consortium of engineering schools, of which Penn State is a member. The Alibre Design application provides peer-to-peer data sharing and real-time collaborative mechanical design.

The use of Alibre Design at Penn State will be led by Richard Devon, associate professor of engineering design; Sven Bilen, assistant professor, design and electrical engineering; and Gul Kremer, assistant professor of engineering design and graphics. "At Penn State, we want our engineering students to have experience with the most advanced tools and programs," Devon said. "Alibre Design gives us a tool for data sharing, collaboration and engineering design in one comprehensive application." Penn State University has one of the nation's leading engineering schools--an undergraduate program ranked fourteenth, and a graduate program ranked eighth among public universities by recent reports from U.S. News & World Report.(1)

Through the PRESTIGE consortium, other universities will immediately use Alibre Design with their engineering students for collaborative design projects. "It's a great benefit to our student programs to have Alibre Design, a collaborative design tool that complements the many different CAD applications used by the PRESTIGE institutions," said Javier Sanchez Sierra, professor of engineering design, of the Escuela Superior de Ingenieros-Tecnun, at Universidad de Navarra in Spain. "In our students' international design projects, Alibre Design will be critical to data sharing and online collaboration."

The PRESTIGE Consortium (Preparing Engineering Students to work in the Global Economy) was established in 2001 and includes eight engineering schools in France, England, Spain and the United States. Its programs include multinational design projects by the students and opportunities for internships and study exchanges among the participating institutions.

The software grant by Alibre is part of an ongoing education program to deploy Alibre Design among the next generation of mechanical engineers. "By providing this grant, Alibre can influence upcoming classes of new engineering graduates by providing hands-on access to collaborative design tools," said J. Paul Grayson, CEO and president of Alibre. "It's even more exciting to see Alibre Design deployed for international design projects since our mission from the start has been to connect dispersed teams."

Alibre Inc. offers Alibre Design, the only low-cost, easy-to-deploy mechanical design and data-sharing application, built for the Internet with a peer-to-peer architecture. Support for open data standards through STEP maximizes users' existing investments in CAD and PDM, while making advanced design collaboration capabilities accessible to everyone. The results for manufacturers are slashed costs, boosted productivity, improved quality and shorter manufacturing cycles. Founded in 1997, Alibre is privately funded and based in Richardson, Texas. For more information, visit www.alibre.com or call 972/671-8492. Educational institutions should contact Greg Milliken, VP of marketing.

1 Sources: America's Best Colleges 2002, U.S. News & World Report;

and America's Best Graduate Schools 2002, U.S. News & World Report

Alibre and Alibre Design are trademarks of Alibre Inc.