Plumtree Launches Applications Program and Radical Openness Product Strategy at Odyssey 2003

Over 700 Attendees, 45 Partners, 15 Analysts and Journalists Participate in Largest User Conference in Plumtree History

HOLLYWOOD, Fla., Plumtree Odyssey User Conference, Oct. 13, 2003 -- Enterprise Web leader Plumtree Software (Nasdaq: PLUM) opened its fifth annual user conference today, unveiling a new product strategy of Radical Openness, and launching a new Enterprise Web Applications program with demonstrations of 30 applications built by technology partners, customers and Plumtree. Plumtree CEO John Kunze and Delphi Group President Tom Koulopoulos will review several of the new applications and Plumtree's product strategy in today's keynote, and in an executive Web briefing on Wednesday, October 15th at 11:00 a.m. PT, with registration at http://www.plumtree.com/03/delphiseminar.

At Odyssey, over 700 attendees from more than 275 organizations in 17 countries are participating, including 45 partners, 15 analysts and press, and more than 300 customers. Over 40 customers are presenting best practices and technical insights drawn from their experience deploying the Enterprise Web.

"At last year's Odyssey, we launched the Enterprise Web based on the simple idea that all the Web applications an organization develops for its employees, partners and customers should work together, regardless of the application server on which they're hosted," said Plumtree CEO John Kunze. "Our year-long focus on filling empty portals with rich applications is the reason we believe that Plumtree was recognized this year in several analyst surveys as the ROI leader. At Odyssey 2003, a wide range of customers and partners are now demonstrating examples of these applications, and Plumtree is outlining a vision of how we will re-imagine our Web software to further support their efforts."

"We call this re-imagining Radical Openness. Radical Openness is our strategy to offer both J2EE and .NET versions of our entire application management framework, new points of integration for synchronizing the Enterprise Web environment with systems of record as well as desktop tools, and the ability to embed Enterprise Web services in any Web application," Kunze continued. "Ultimately, we believe the way applications are being developed is fundamentally changing, and that with the Enterprise Web, applications can be developed in greater volumes, at lower cost, and on a wider variety of platforms than ever before."

Enterprise Web Applications

In today's Odyssey keynote, Plumtree is demonstrating a sampling of the Enterprise Web applications being developed by the company and its customers and partners, including:

-- Cognos Executive Dashboard and Scorecarding Application: for executives to survey key performance indicators, announced separately today;

-- MediaEdge Gavel Application: for courts to access all the video, audio and documentary evidence related to a case, announced separately today;

-- SEEC's Integrated Customer Service Application: for insurance agents to interact with customer account and policy information from many systems, announced separately today;

-- HandySoft Sarbanes-Oxley Application: for finance departments to monitor and manage corporate governance processes;

-- Innerlink Homeland Emergency Response Operations eSystem (HEROS): for local governments to aggregate homeland security information and services;

-- Plumtree Evaluation Center: for prospective customers to collaborate with Plumtree and research potential solutions;

-- Plumtree Sales Productivity Application: for sales people to manage opportunities and access competitive intelligence and marketing materials; and

-- Plumtree Support Center: for Plumtree customers and partners to get technical and developer support, announced separately today.

To recruit additional partners developing Enterprise Web applications, Plumtree is today launching a new application partner program, with registration at http://www.plumtree.com/ApplicationPartners.

Plumtree will also be announcing four new customer Enterprise Web deployments, which demonstrate how organizations can assemble and manage a volume and variety of applications in the Enterprise Web:

-- Pioneer Natural Resources has built Enterprise Web applications for monitoring oil production in the fields, reviewing financial scorecards, and facilitating online HR;

-- Ford Motor Company has built a European Dealer Network application to drive sales and enable dealer self-service in 18 countries across Europe;

-- Syncrude has assembled 150 Enterprise Web applications for over 5,000 employees, partners and contractors, centralizing access to hundreds of systems, providing production dashboards, self-service HR, and advanced cost tracking; and

-- Des Moines University has deployed Enterprise Web applications for students, faculty and staff, facilitating learning, providing self-service HR and eliminating hundreds of separate intranet sites university-wide.

The applications being developed by customers and partners within the Enterprise Web differ from traditional applications in that they:

-- combine existing data and processes from enterprise systems with new shared services for greater return on assets;

-- are assembled dynamically, incorporating new capabilities on-the-fly for greater adaptability; and

-- are designed to be integrated into an enterprise-wide environment, so users can easily navigate between or search across applications, and Web services developed for one application can be re-used as-is in other applications. This results in enterprise-wide economies of scale.

A white paper on the technical characteristics of such applications is available today at http://www.plumtree.com/strategy.

Radical Openness

Plumtree is also today outlining plans to release a J2EE version of its portal software with support for Sun Solaris, IBM AIX and, later, Linux operating systems. In a separate release today, Sun affirmed support for Plumtree's Radical Openness strategy and anticipated Plumtree's J2EE portal on the Sun platform. The planned J2EE version of the Plumtree Corporate Portal goes beyond previous versions that offered Java user interfaces and programming interfaces, providing an entirely Java object model. The Java portal uses the same Web Services Architecture as the Plumtree Windows-based portal, so that both versions can connect via HTTP protocols to the same set of integration, content management and collaboration Web services. Plumtree will continue to actively support a .NET version of its portal.

Being the first vendor to offer .NET and J2EE Enterprise Web technologies is only the first step in Plumtree's Radical Openness strategy. In a keynote presentation today, Plumtree CEO John Kunze will outline the four major planks of this product direction:

-- Shared services: Plumtree is planning to re-architect its products so that search, security, collaboration, content management and integration services are available to any application, including competing portal sites.

-- Modular applications: Plumtree is working with applications partners to develop a standard for embedding entire Web applications in the Enterprise Web's security, navigation and search frameworks to give users a unified experience across many different applications.

-- Mutant flexibility: Plumtree is working to develop new integration points for storing Enterprise Web content in foreign repositories, synchronizing the Enterprise Web's collaboration engine with project management systems, and building composite forms based on fields in enterprise systems such as Siebel, Oracle and SAP.

-- Enterprise productivity: Plumtree is on a path to systematically integrate with the desktop tools people use every day, such as Microsoft Office applications, e-mail, and instant messaging to capture the efforts of individuals in an enterprise framework for collaboration and knowledge management.

Details on this product strategy are available in a white paper at http://www.plumtree.com/strategy.

About Plumtree Software

Plumtree Software is the Enterprise Web leader. Plumtree's mission is to create a comprehensive Web environment for employees, customers and partners across the enterprise to interact with different systems and work together. Plumtree's Enterprise Web solution consists of shared products for bringing resources from traditional systems together on the Web, shared services such as collaboration, content management and search for building new Web applications, and a portal platform for delivering these Web applications to broad audiences. Plumtree's independence and its Web Services Architecture allow this solution to span rival platforms and systems, helping maximize customers' return on their existing technology investments. With offices in more than a dozen countries, Plumtree has licensed over 550 customers, including Boeing, Ford Motor Company, Procter & Gamble and the U.S. Navy.

NOTE: Plumtree is a registered trademark of Plumtree Software, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries in the US and/or other countries. All other registered and unregistered trademarks in this document are the sole property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Plumtree Software

Web Site: http://www.plumtree.com