Microsoft Announces New Collaborative Program

Today at the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) 2004 International Conference, Microsoft Corp. (www.microsoft.com) announced its new Program for Collaborative Product Development (CPD).

"We realize that collaboration for product development is an area manufacturers have been struggling with, so we are working to combine our platform knowledge with the domain expertise of our partners to create a program that can truly help them get over that hurdle," said Don Richardson, director of the Manufacturing Industry Unit at Microsoft.

The program is created to help manufacturers deliver products to market faster in today's competitive environment while reducing product development costs.

"Sopheon's Accolade solution, built on Microsoft's integrated platform and technologies, will give us an enterprisewide communication and collaboration link in real time," said Craig Maxwell, vice president of technology and innovation at Parker Hannifin.

It focuses on two critical areas of product life-cycle management (PLM) in manufacturing as defined by leading industry analyst firms: product design and collaboration (PDC) and portfolio and program management (PPM).

"The strategic value of implementing collaborative technologies to speed product development has been greatly underestimated by manufacturers," said Kevin O'Marah, AMR Research Inc.

The companies offering solutions and services around Microsoft's new program include HP, Immedient Corp., Pcubed, Sopheon and UGS Corp.

"As a leading global provider of product life-cycle management solutions, we work with our manufacturing customers to enable them to transform their process of innovation," said Chuck Grindstaff, executive vice president of PLM Products at UGS.

In addition, leading enterprise manufacturing companies such as Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. and Parker Hannifin Corp. have recently adopted solutions based on Microsoft technology.