SofTech, Inc. News
SofTech Partners with NorthRidge Software to Expand ProductCenter PLM Solutions
Partnership Targets New PLM Applications to Expand ProductCenter™ Capabilities and Speed of Deployment for CustomersTEWKSBURY, Mass., May 29, 2003 — SofTech, Inc. (OTCBB: SOFT), a leading provider of design-through-manufacturing productivity solutions, together with its Workgroup Technology Division, announced a renewed partnership with NorthRidge Software, LLC to develop specialized, Web-based applications built on SofTech’s ProductCenter™ collaborative product data management (PDM) platform. NorthRidge will develop a series of fully integrated applications to automate and accelerate many kinds of business processes that include product portfolio management, project management, and other applications and utilities.
“We are very pleased to announce our continued relationship with SofTech”, states Mike Turcotte, NorthRidge Software partner, “and look forward to providing new PLM applications to complement the already rich suite of ProductCenter products. Our objective is to assist product companies that have committed to significantly improving their product planning and development process by providing consulting services and applications based on ProductCenter.”
NorthRidge Software, headed by Al Cole and Mike Turcotte, who were both founders of Workgroup Technology (now a division of SofTech) before establishing NorthRidge, has provided services to ProductCenter customers for over six years. These services have included developing applications for portfolio management, engineering change management, CAD viewer/markup, and additional ProductCenter administrative utilities.
The next application developed and to be released by NorthRidge will be ProductDashboard, a Web portal that allows each user to personalize their interface into task-based clients, extending the value of PDM to the many consumers of product information. “Think of it as a PDM version of a “my Yahoo” personalized internet page,” states Al Cole, Northridge Software partner.
“We have also newly developed a product portfolio management application recently put into production at a Fortune 200 company,” adds Cole. “Our domain expertise in product portfolio management, combined with our intimate technical knowledge of ProductCenter, allowed us to build a very powerful solution to meet the customer’s exacting requirements.”
At a time when research and development dollars are scarce, portfolio management can assist a product company in objectively identifying the best of the new product development projects, and, most importantly, reveal areas of poor performance for determining ongoing allocation of investment.
“NorthRidge is like an extension of our own development organization,” adds Jay Pappas, SofTech ProductCenter product manager. “NorthRidge strikes the right balance between customer experience, development methodologies, and domain expertise to deliver the one-up-man-ship companies require. Needless to say, with their expertise, we’re very pleased to be working with NorthRidge in the development of our ProductCenter PLM application portfolio.”
About NorthRidge Software, LLC
NorthRidge Software, LLC provides solutions that allow customers to realize the full potential of their Product Lifecycle Management (PLM/PDM) investment. Benefiting from over 15 years of experience in applications and technologies that support the Product Development process, the NorthRidge team extends the capabilities of PLM by delivering highly specialized, Web-based clients to meet the end user's specific requirements. For additional information on NorthRidge Software and its capabilities, visit the company’s web site at www.nridge.com.
About SofTech
SofTech, Inc. (OTCBB: SOFT) provides design-through-manufacturing productivity solutions with its computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) and product data management (PDM) products including CADRA®, DesignGateway™, Prospector™, and ProductCenter™ (through SofTech’s Workgroup Technology Division). SofTech’s solutions optimize product lifecycle management at the lowest cost by fostering innovation, extended enterprise collaboration, product quality improvements, and compressed time-to-market cycles.
SofTech has more than 100,000 users benefiting from its solutions, including Boeing, FlightSafety International, General Electric Company, Goodrich Turbine Fuel Technologies, Honeywell, Millipore Corporation, Siemens, Sikorsky Aircraft, U.S. Army, and Whirlpool Corporation.
Headquartered in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, SofTech (www.softech.com) has locations throughout North America and Europe.
SofTech, CADRA, DesignGateway, ProductCenter and Prospector are trademarks or registered trademarks of SofTech, Inc., in the U.S. and/or other countries. SofTech is a trademark of SofTech, Inc. All other brands, logos, products or company names are the copyrights and/or trademarks of their respective holders.
