Versata Enterprises Hosts User Conference to Affirm Customer Success Focus

Versata and Artemis Join Forces for 2007 User Conference

PORTLAND, Oregon--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Versata Enterprises, a leading provider of enterprise software solutions, recently hosted the 2007 User Conference, comprising attendees from the family of Versata Enterprises companies (including Versata and Artemis). The joint conference enabled attendees to benefit from focused product and industry discussions, as well as a broader exposure to solution approaches employed by other customers. In keeping with Versata’s focus on customer success, speakers emphasized the importance of driving business value by partnering to pursue new cost savings ideas and prioritize investments. Over 200 users attended, representing 38 Artemis customers and 24 Versata customers. Randy Jacops, Versata Enterprises CEO, opened the conference with a keynote presentation reviewing successes and challenges over the past year and affirmed Versata’s commitment to continued innovation. Jacops stressed Versata’s goal of continuously advancing products and solutions, and the importance of customer involvement in setting strategic direction. Jacops also summarized the company’s strategic direction for the next year and presented new services designed to drive IT cost savings for customers. The customer and value focus became a theme for the remainder of the conference. As the conference progressed, Dan Carroll, Director of Product Strategy, presented a much-anticipated Artemis product plan update. Carroll summarized an active year of releases across the Artemis product suite and committed to a relentless focus on advancing A9000, Views, and A7. In recognition of customer feedback emphasizing product quality, Carroll presented a refined product plan focusing on Versata’s “quality engineering principles” and emphasized the benefits of an enhanced quality program, including efficient upgrades and accelerated features. Carroll closed his comments by emphasizing the team’s focus on customer commitments and encouraged all customers to maintain a dialogue on priorities over the next year. While Artemis customers discussed the future, Versata customers reviewed industry-specific product roadmaps for Financial Services, Automotive, and High Tech. As expected, Versata product managers emphasized a focus on product speed, reliability, and customer value. Consistent with past tradition, Versata customers met independently to review the plans and concur on proposed revisions and improvements. Scott Johnson, IT Director from Penn Mutual, said, "Versata is the only vendor I work with that consistently exceeds our expectations. By soliciting customer feedback and prioritization through an established product roadmap review process, Versata enables their engineering teams to deliver the highest value. Our ability to be deeply involved in product planning ensures we maximize value from the Versata relationship." Ken Keith, President of the Artemis Users Association Executive Council, commented, “The AUA conference success was the culmination of a year of hard work by the AUA Executive Council. It was great to have the whole organization, including Artemis and Versata customers, together with management to learn and share information. I look forward to future conferences and the growth of the conference.” Chris Smith, COO of Versata Enterprises, commented, “We believe we have the most efficient and capable global engineering organization in the world, and we leverage that capability to deliver customer success. This enables us to deliver beyond customer expectations on innovation and value. We appreciate the time and commitment of our customers to ensure we meet and exceed expectations. Our teams continue evaluating feedback from the conference and will continue working on more ideas for next year.” Versata expects even more attendees at next year’s conference in Savannah, Georgia, thereby ensuring an ongoing path to innovation and value. For information on registration and timing, contact Julie Bosshart, Versata Marketing Manager. About Artemis International Solutions Corporation With over 600,000 users worldwide and a global network covering 45 countries, Artemis International Solutions Corporation is the world’s leading provider of Project Portfolio Management solutions. Artemis has refined 30 years experience into a suite of industry optimized solutions and consulting services designed to help both private and public sector organizations execute their strategies and improve performance through effective project portfolio management. Artemis Solutions address the organization’s total investment planning and control needs including: IT Management, New Product Development, Program Management and Strategic Asset Optimization. Further information is available at http://www.aisc.com. About Versata Enterprises With a global presence in 45 countries from North America to Europe and Asia, Versata Enterprises, Inc., provides solutions for automating and simplifying the building, maintenance and ongoing evolution of large, complex, data-intensive enterprise applications and for managing and auditing product and asset portfolios. Additionally, Versata’s business rules solution effectively and efficiently replaces time-intensive hand-coding efforts with simple, intuitive business rules and graphical process flow specifications, thereby accelerating implementation timing and enabling customers to deliver targeted functionality and integration. Coupled with Versata’s Customer Success Program whereby customers define criteria for a successful relationship and Versata commits to delivering them, the Versata portfolio is the leading option for business and IT organizations looking to deliver business value and lower cost to their customers. Further information is available at http://www.versata.com.