RAND GETS EUR 3.6 MILLION ORDER FROM GERMAN GROUP.

RAND Worldwide, Mississauga, Canada, has announced that "Berufsakademien Baden-Wurttemberg" (a group of nine German universities of Cooperative Education) has selected the company to provide implementation services and hardware to upgrade the institution's information technology (IT) infrastructure, as well as 500 seats of CATIA V5 from Dassault Systemes. The project, which was placed in Germany through IT Solutions, a division of RAND Worldwide, is valued at approximately EUR 3.6 million (Cdn$5.5 million.)

Under the terms of the contract, RAND Worldwide will replace the existing IT infrastructure of the nine universities, which is used to support the universities' technical education programs. RAND Worldwide will be providing several highly available servers that are used for data storage and management, as well as for user management. The transaction also includes the delivery of over 400 workstations for Computer-aided Design (CAD) training and simulation based on the CATIA V5 software, which is key to the development of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) strategies. The company will also provide training to the university instructors who will, in turn, teach their students to use the CATIA software.

RAND Worldwide will also be providing a range of data management and printing implementation services to the universities, including case tools for fast and efficient quota-setting, -management and -billing.

In winning the contract, RAND Worldwide was one of several competitors that submitted to an extensive benchmarking process, including two days of live on-site-testing of the systems-management tools developed by each contestant.

"We chose RAND because their results in the benchmark were clearly the best and because we believe they will provide not only the equipment we need, but also the highest level of service to ensure the best result," said Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Roland Staufner, head of the evaluation committee at the Berufsakademien. "Also, it has become quite obvious that they have a heart-felt commitment to engineering and to the technical education of young engineers."

"We are very pleased to be chosen as a partner for one of the major educational institutions for engineering skills here in Germany. After our win two years ago with Fachhochschulen Baden-Wurttemberg (polytechnical universities), we have been chosen again to facilitate state-of-the-art-education for young engineers, which includes the introduction to PLM," stated Ralf Prinz, vice-president of RAND Worldwide in Germany. "And as engineers, we are particularly happy to have the chance to help support the future practitioners of our profession."

"As well as providing solid revenue to the company, this contract is the third major systems integration agreement we have completed recently, shows another part of RAND's business that is stronger than ever before and demonstrates the growing importance of CATIA as a core technology for the next generation of engineers," said Brian Semkiw, CEO of RAND Worldwide. "The students using these systems will be the professionals who will soon be helping to ensure that our engineering technologies supporting Product Lifecycle Management are effectively applied in the global marketplace."

"Berufsakademien des Landes Baden-Wurttemberg" represents a practice-oriented academic educational concept. It offers a parallel process of theoretical learning at the institution and practical execution in industry, providing a strong interlock between the two, which leads to a high-level of academic and practical achievement for the students. With nine sites around Baden-Wurttemberg, the Berufsakademien enables more than 16,000 students to earn degrees in Engineering, Business Administration and Social Work. The university's practical approach to technical education and well established relationship with industry have helped to provide its graduates with a high level of success following graduation.

For further information visit http://www.ba-bw.de.

About

RAND Worldwide is one of the world's leading providers of engineering services and technology to manufacturers looking to optimize their Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) processes. Unlike traditional CAD/CAM/CAE/PDM technologies, PLM provides collaborative solutions to define and manage information throughout the complete product lifecycle and across the entire extended enterprise.

As the world's only independent global engineering technology provider, RAND Worldwide employs approximately 1,200 people in more than 100 international sales and client service centers.

The company's corporate head office in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada can be reached at 905-625-2000 or through the Internet at http://www.rand.com.

RAND IT-Solutions is a division of RAND Worldwide(tm), focused on information technology (IT) implementation. IT-Solutions provides infrastructure solutions and technical support for a wide range of sectors including Manufacturing, Engineering, and Financial Services as well the Public Sector and Educational Institutions. IT-Solutions offers a complete range of IT services to help solve Mission Critical challenges of its customers. These challenges go from systems reliability and performance, storage consolidation, assured data backup and retrieval to enhanced product development, systems management and remote access to applications.

For more information, visit http://www.randitsolutions.de or call (905)625-2000, ext. 2369.