Industry veteran Tsunehiro Unozawa named as president
TOKYO, JAPAN
SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A - SavvionTM, an innovative global provider of Internet-based business process management solutions, today announced the opening of Savvion Japan, its subsidiary located in Tokyo. Savvion Japan will market the company's flagship product, Savvion BusinessManagerTM to respond to the growing Japanese market requirement to implement business-to-business automation. Savvion Japan will be headed by Tsunehiro Unozawa, an industry veteran with over 20 years of executive management experience in high technology software companies.
The Westaim Corporation holds a 22 per cent equity interest in Savvion, formerly Technology Deployment International.
Savvion Japan will help major Japanese organizations in key sectors including high-tech, manufacturing, telecom and mobile communications to rapidly transform their business-to-business and business-to-consumer business processes across the extended enterprise of customers, suppliers and partners, achieving significant cost reductions, increased revenues and improved customer satisfaction. Savvion Japan is hiring a core group of technical, support and sales staff, in conjunction with local implementation partnerships to fully support the Company's growing business.
Mr. Unozawa's prior position was president of System Solution Center Tochigi, a test environment for XML and Java products. From 1990 to 1993 he was Vice President of Novell Japan. Prior to that he held senior management positions with Digital Equipment Corporation and Toshiba.
Savvion has a very well established history marketing products in Japan with companies such as Fujitsu Limited, Fujitsu Telecom and DoCoMo as customers. These organizations have derived real business benefits as they automate their business processes and migrate them to fully deployed web-based applications. BusinessManager is fully internationalized and localized to meet the unique needs of the Japanese market.
"The adoption of the Internet in Japan ranks next to the U.S. in growth and significance, making it a very important market for us," said Dr. Mohammad Ketabchi, President and CEO of Savvion, Inc. "We are reinforcing and expanding our operations in Japan to capitalize on such growth and further strengthen our relationships with our existing partners such as Fujitsu. We think this will be especially important for our wireless business process products as Internet enabled cell phones are so pervasive through Japan and the Pacific Rim."
About Savvion
Savvion is an innovative global provider of Internet deployed business management solutions. The company's flagship product, BusinessManager, lets customers automate business operations by quickly transforming internal and external processes into flexible, distributed Web applications that can be accessed and managed over intranets, extranets and wireless devices. Customers then manage their business and their processes online, streamlining interaction with their customers, partners, suppliers and employees. BusinessManager gives customers a real-time, online view of their business operations, and the power to modify automated processes dynamically based on changing conditions. Privately held, Savvion received a $25M 1st round funding in April 2000 from an international investment group including: The Westaim Corporation (Nasdaq: WEDX), HIG Capital, TransCosmos USA (Japan) and D-Age (Netherlands) and Redwood Venture Partners. Savvion is headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley in Santa Clara, Calif. For more information, visit www.savvion.com or call 1-888-544-5511.
About The Westaim Corporation
The Westaim Corporation is a technology accelerator that launches exceptional technologies into the marketplace. In addition to its investment in Savvion, Westaim's technology investments include Westaim Biomedical Corp., which has developed an infection control technology for use in the treatment of wounds, and iFire Technology Inc., which has developed a revolutionary low-cost flat panel display. Westaim's common shares are listed on Nasdaq under the symbol WEDX and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol WED.
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For more information:
Tony Johnston, Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, The Westaim Corporation,
(403) 234-3103, info@westaim.com, www.westaim.com
Don Nanneman, Savvion, (408) 330-3496; nanneman@savvion.com
Mary MacGregor, Spiralgroup for Savvion, (760) 360-9014, marym@spiralgroup.com
This news release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and the Company can give no assurance that these expectations are correct. Various factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in such statements, including financial considerations and those predicting the timing and market acceptance of future products. The Company disclaims any intention or obligations to revise forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this Cautionary Statement.
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