ANN ARBOR, Michigan, April 4, 2002—According to figures released today from consulting and research firm CIMdata, Inc., the worldwide collaborative Product Definition management (cPDm) portion of the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) market grew 25% to reach $3.6 billion during 2001. Investments in software (including software maintenance) increased to more than $1.6 billion, while services revenues exceeded $1.9 billion. PLM is a strategic business approach that applies a consistent set of business solutions in support of the collaborative creation, management, dissemination, and use of product definition information across the extended enterprise from concept to end of life – integrating people, processes, and information. PLM forms the product information backbone for a company and its extended enterprise. It is composed of multiple elements including: foundation technologies and standards (e.g., XML, visualization, collaboration, and enterprise application integration), information authoring tools (e.g., MCAD, ECAD and technical publishing), core functions (e.g., data vaults, document and content management, workflow and program management), and functional applications (e.g., configuration management), and business solutions built on the other elements. cPDm encompasses all of PLM except for information authoring tools such as mechanical and electronic computer-aided design (MCAD and ECAD), computer-aided software engineering (CASE), and technical publishing. cPDm is focused on collaboration, management and sharing of product related information. CIMdata forecasts overall PLM investments to continue growing at a strong pace over the next five years. The firm predicts the cPDm portion of the PLM market will exceed $4.8 billion in 2002 and increase at a compound annual growth rate of 25% through 2006, when they expect the market size to exceed $11 billion. “In the face of the general economic turndown, solid industry growth in 2001 is an indication that companies clearly recognize PLM as fundamental to their ability to operate more successfully in increasingly competitive global markets. Significant investments in software licenses were made in the first half of 2001, following a very strong ramp-up of implementation programs during 2000. Companies continued to deploy PLM solutions during the third and fourth quarters of 2001, though market growth was not as strong during the last half of the year as in the first two quarters,” says Ed Miller, President of CIMdata.