SPE.L Regulatory News (SPE)

17 Jun 2005 06:00

Embargoed Release: 07:00hrs 17th June 2005 SOPHEON PLC AGM Statement At the Annual General Meeting of Sopheon plc ("Sopheon") to be held latertoday, the Chairman of the board will give shareholders an update on thebusiness. This will include the following statement:"I am pleased to report that Sopheon continues to make significant strategicand operational advances in the pursuit of its core business goals. In ourupdate on Sopheon's first-quarter performance, published in April, we notedthat the period included revenue from three new Accolade license contracts andseven extension orders with existing customers for additional user licenses,consultancy or hosting services. There have been further successes during thesecond quarter, and we are endeavouring to close on several more contractsbefore the end of June. At the present time, our client base includes 57licensed customers, and Accolade is now being used in 48 countries around theglobe. These totals do not include stand-alone pilot or consultancy clients,nor users of our small scale lab solution in the Netherlands. I would like tohighlight two other points. First, customers have historically built up largelicense investments by adding users over time; last year, three customers eachcontracted for a license value in excess of $600,000 in a single transaction -two of these sales were concluded in the final days of 2004, highlighting thesignificant effect on our results of large individual contract wins. Second,our recurring maintenance base has doubled since the start of 2003, to ‚£1.1million as we entered 2005.The prospects for growth continue to be positive. A number of IT research andadvisory firms are forecasting that Product Portfolio Management (PPM) will beone of the fastest growing PLM categories during the next three years. Thismomentum is attracting increasing interest from traditional software vendors.Some are achieving market entry through M&A activity; others are looking toextend the functionality and content of their existing software suites toaddress PPM needs. We are confident that Accolade, with its deep domainstrength and specific out-of-the-box functionality, continues to lead themarket. In addition, Sopheon is actively developing partnerships to bolsterboth our strategic and channel strength in this changing competitive landscape.The alignment of Accolade with Microsoft technology is a key example of theseefforts, and the benefits have come through firmly in the latest release ofAccolade. Version 6.0 was a landmark release, supported by Microsoft both interms of R&D investment and marketing activity in Europe and America, and hasbeen very well received by market analysts. Having judged its CollaborativeProduct Development pilot initiative a business success, Microsoft is nowtaking steps to implement the program on a global scale and is also introducingseveral other potential partners to Sopheon.Our continued focus on growing our global ecosystem has resulted in agreementswith new reseller partners, including Deloitte & Touche in South Africa,Inogate in Portugal, Team Progress in New Zealand and Australia, and ASI inSouth Korea. In parallel with these developments, Sopheon has begun to pursue anumber of other partnering opportunities, and we have also given seriousconsideration to a small number of potential M&A transactions. I am pleased inthis context to announce today the signature of a letter of intent to augmentour relationship with Team Progress through a financial investment in theirSopheon reseller business. Further details of these initiatives will beannounced in due course.With the rate of market change growing in speed and complexity, and the volumeof competitor activity steadily escalating, we believe that it is essential toposition Sopheon to protect and extend its established lead in the PPM market.Two weeks ago we undertook a share placing on AIM, boosting our cash resourcesat the end of May to over ‚£2 million, to enable Sopheon to take timelyadvantage of opportunities for business expansion, and to act with strength inthe increasingly dynamic market environment."For further information contact:Barry Mence, Chairman Sopheon plc Tel : + 44 (0) 1483 685 735 Arif Karimjee, CFO Andrew Tan Hansard Communications Tel : + 44 (0) 207 245 1100 + 44 (0) 7957 203 685 Eva Lindner Citigate First Financial Tel : + 31 (0) 205 754 023 About SopheonSopheon (LSE:SPE) is an international provider of software and services thathelp organizations improve the business impact of product development. TheSopheon Accolade‚® product development system automates gate- or phase-basedproduct development (PD) processes and provides strategic decision support thatallows companies to improve innovation, cut product development spending wasteand shorten time to market. Sopheon is listed on the AIM market of the LondonStock Exchange and on the Euronext Amsterdam. For more information visit www.sopheon.com.ENDSOPHEON PLC