Marimba Selected by Shepherd to Automate Software Distribution and Improve Inventory Management

Business Wire, Sept 4, 2002

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 4, 2002

Marimba, Inc. (Nasdaq:MRBA), the Software Change-Management Company, today announced that Shepherd, one of Europe's leading construction companies is now able to automate its software rollouts to its staff working on-site and to facilitate its asset and inventory management, following its implementation of Marimba's Desktop/Mobile Management solutions.

As one of Europe's largest privately owned engineering and construction groups, employing 1500 people, the management and control of IT within Shepherd is complex. The Shepherd IT environment is widely dispersed, with staff and equipment based on different construction sites for temporary periods of time. These temporary locations require IT support teams to travel to the various sites to manually update and distribute software or undertake any essential repairs or maintenance, a factor, which is costly both in terms of time and resources.

Zoe Turnbull, IT director at Shepherd explained, "Working in a dispersed environment at multiple locations brings with it a wide range of IT management issues. We were throwing more people at the problem but we needed to find a way to improve our processes and help manage change. We needed a system to automate our software, send out anti-virus solutions and patches to repair systems, and save our IT teams that were visiting these sites. Marimba's Desktop/Mobile Management products provided the perfect answer. We have centralized our software management, tightened our inventory control, reduced our help desk calls, and enabled our skilled IT workers to be deployed in a much more effective way."

A further benefit of Marimba's offerings is the ability to distribute software in small amounts of data, which makes it highly efficient in terms of bandwidth.

"Most of our sites are green field sites where ISDN is the only option. Usually our systems can only cope with 64K of data at any given time. Using Marimba's technology, we are able to roll out the software in small pieces, gradually, and with no disruption to our users. This is a huge bonus. At the end of the day, we want our employees to have a high quality IT service -- thanks to Marimba, we are getting just that," Turnbull added.

About Marimba

Marimba, Inc., the Software Change-Management Company, is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. Marimba's Desktop/Mobile Management, Server Management, and Embedded Management product families allow Global 2000 companies to better manage their IT resources, increase operational efficiency and reduce IT costs. Additional information is available at www.marimba.com.

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the safe harbors created by these sections. These forward-looking statements include Shepherd's planned use of Marimba's Desktop/Mobile Management products to automate software distribution and updates, centralize software management, tighten and improve inventory control and management, reduce help desk calls, more efficiently utilize skilled IT workers and improve quality of service; certain other technical and performance benefits Shepherd expects to achieve with Marimba's Desktop/Mobile Management products; and the expectation that Shepherd will make Marimba's products part of its standard infrastructure. Those results are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including the remaining time and effort required to complete Shepherd's deployment, which could be greater than expected; technical challenges specific to Shepherd's implementation that could impact whether Shepherd is able to achieve expected benefits with Marimba's products; and other business factors particular to Shepherd and Marimba which could impact whether Shepherd continues to use Marimba's products in the future. Actual results may differ materially due to these and other factors. The matters discussed in this press release also involve risks and uncertainties described from time to time in Marimba's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see the Risk Factors described in Marimba's most recently filed Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. Marimba assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.

Note to Editors: Marimba is a registered trademark of Marimba, Inc. in the U.S. and/or certain other countries. Other product, trademark, company or service names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners.