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Monday, March 03, 2008

Ariba Delivers Enterprise-Class Spend Management On-Demand

Ariba, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARBA), the leading spend management solutions provider, has set a new standard for software delivered as a service. With the latest release of its on-demand spend management solutions, Ariba provides a full suite of enterprise-class offerings that can be quickly, easily and cost effectively deployed by companies of all sizes across functions to achieve fast, measurable results.

"For years, enterprise-class spend management was confined to on-premise, customized solutions, which only large companies could afford to purchase and deploy," said Alex Moissis, Vice President, Solutions Management, Ariba. "With the latest release of Ariba’s on-demand solutions, large and growing organizations alike can access a full range of applications on-demand that enable them to manage their spend from end-to-end and deliver bottom-line results."

According to the Supply Management Market Sizing Report 2006-2011 published by AMR Research, "alternative deployment (on-demand) models continue to be the largest growth driver of the supply management market..." And as noted in "Supply Management: A Market Update" issued by AMR Research on February 25, 2008, "Landing Procuri made Ariba the largest on-demand provider in supply management, giving it a whopping 50% of the market share."

More Value, More Quickly
A unique combination of technology, category expertise and services delivered in a single, integrated platform, Ariba’s on-demand spend management solutions require no investment in hardware or lengthy implementations. "With Ariba, companies can be up and running along the path to spend management excellence in weeks, not months or years," Moissis said. In addition, Ariba's solutions deliver low cost integration with ERP systems, allowing companies to accelerate and increase returns on their investments.

Expanded Reach and Impact
Enterprise-class features embedded across Ariba’s latest on-demand release, coupled with ease of use and deployment enable organizations of all sizes to expand the reach and impact of spend management across markets, functions and spend owners.

"Traditional installed software approaches once limited spend management savings to the procurement groups within large enterprises," said Tim Minahan, Chief Marketing Officer, Ariba. "With its latest on-demand release, Ariba delivers enterprise-class spend management functionality and expertise that enables companies of all sizes to drive savings in new functional areas, such as finance and legal and include a broader range of spend owners, such as marketing, human resources, and IT to increase and accelerate results."

Comprehensive Contract Management
Negotiating and managing contracts is an enterprise-wide activity that extends far beyond procurement. With enhanced buy and sell-side capabilities, Ariba® Contract Management™ enables companies to collaboratively create and manage contracts across categories and functions, including sales, marketing, real estate, legal, procurement and IT. Active compliance tools help organizations move beyond basic authoring and document archiving to drive compliance and achieve full value of their contracts regardless of their backend procurement or ERP systems.

Network-Driven Collaboration and Financing
In turbulent economic times, it is more critical than ever that buyers and suppliers work together to ensure the stability and health of their operations. To drive such collaboration, Ariba now provides direct access to third-party financing solutions from Orbian through the Ariba Supplier Network™. Leveraging the solutions, buying organizations can achieve cost savings or better trade terms and suppliers can receive certainty of payment timing and amount. And with enhanced discount management tools embedded in the network, suppliers can more effectively manage cash receivables by offering incentives to key trading partners for early payment. With more than 160,000 registered suppliers in 115 countries engaging in transactions worth more than $100 billion a year, the Ariba Supplier Network is one of world’s largest open business transaction networks. Through Ariba Supplier Connectivity™, companies using ERP and other non-Ariba procurement applications can seamlessly connect to the network and reap the benefits that it provides.

Complex Services Procurement
Companies are increasingly pursuing bottom-line savings through effective management of a broad range of services. Through services-specific, best-practice processes built into Ariba Services Procurement™, companies of all sizes can dramatically automate key steps in the spend management process, increase internal compliance to negotiated contracts in complex services, reduce costs and ultimately increase the amount of spend they capture and manage. Delivered on-demand as a service, the solution can be easily integrated with ERP and other third-party procurement applications, enabling companies to maximize IT investments and spend management results.

Deep Procurement Content
Ariba Procurement Content™ allows companies to access a single source of content
for all commodities through an easy-to-use search interface. A unique, end-to-end combination of proven technology, extensive domain expertise and expert services, Ariba Procurement Content enables companies to quickly drive procurement compliance across categories regardless of the specific applications they are using. Delivered on a subscription basis, Ariba Procurement Content is system neutral and eliminates the challenges of point-to-point integration, multiple data formats, managing content and ensuring contract compliance.

Robust Travel & Expense Compliance
Tighter Sarbanes-Oxley and New York Stock Exchange guidelines regarding the reporting of gift and entertainment expenses for non-employees have a growing number of companies struggling to bring themselves into compliance. Through new reporting features included in Ariba Travel and Expense™, companies can track the purchase of gifts and other physical items to customers, prospects, or other non-company individuals along with expenses for entertainment of them. Data can be easily accessed and shared across departments to ensure standardization and accuracy of reporting.

Availability
Ariba's on-demand spend management solutions are available and in use today. To learn more about how your organization can leverage these solutions to improve profits, reduce risk and gain competitive advantage, visit: www.ariba.com

About Ariba, Inc.
Ariba, Inc. is the leading provider of spend management solutions to help companies realize rapid and sustainable bottom line results. Successful companies around the world in every industry use Ariba Spend Management™ software and services. Ariba can be contacted in the U.S. at 1.650.390.1000 or at www.ariba.com.

Broadcom Acquires Sunext Design, Inc. for Optical Drive Technologies to Enable Single-Chip High Definition Blu-ray Disc® Players and Recorders

Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced that it has acquired Sunext Design, Inc. ("Sunext Design"), a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of Sunext Technology Company Limited ("Sunext Technology"), and has licensed certain optical disk reader and writer technology from Sunext Technology. Sunext Technology is a privately-held fabless semiconductor company that specializes in optical storage technologies.

High definition optical disc players are emerging as a popular platform for in-home entertainment worldwide by combining the benefits of a high definition viewing experience with the convenience and familiarity of DVD media. Sunext single-chip front-end technology is a strong complement to the industry-leading Broadcom® system-on-a-chip (SoC) back-end Blu-ray Disc® platform, and key to an integration roadmap that will drive the cost of these devices down to levels that enable widespread consumer adoption of high definition optical disc players and recorders.

With the increasing adoption of full high definition 1080p digital televisions, and with the consumer electronics and media industries now united behind the Blu-ray Disc high definition DVD standard, demand for these high definition players and recorders is expected to increase significantly. As the market grows, manufacturers will strive to reduce prices by adopting optimized SoC solutions that integrate front-end and back-end functions. Broadcom, a leader in integrating advanced functionality, is responding to this trend by acquiring rights to the most highly integrated optical disc front-end technology available. The addition of Sunext's leading technology, along with the experienced engineering team from Sunext Design that can continue to enhance those technologies, will enable Broadcom to derive significant time to market advantages in the development of these highly integrated solutions.

"To further the widespread adoption of high definition Blu-ray Disc media players, it is imperative to have cost-effective, complete silicon solutions, and the acquisition by Broadcom of Sunext Design and license of its associated technology puts Broadcom firmly ahead in the race to offer a complete Blu-ray solution," said Michelle Abraham, Principal Analyst at In-Stat. "The merging of these technologies will help drive down the costs of next-generation Blu-ray Disc players and enable OEMs to deliver products that meet the price points required for mass adoption by consumers."

"The technology that will win the market share battle for Blu-ray Disc players and recorders will be the one that provides the highest quality audio and video processing while integrating the most advanced front-end and back- end functions into a single low cost device," said Dan Marotta, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Broadcom's Broadband Communications Group. "Sunext's technology and strong engineering team will enable Broadcom to

integrate optical reader/writer capability into our industry leading Blu-ray Disc silicon solutions."

"Broadcom's strong position in the Blu-ray Disc player and other home digital multimedia market segments makes it an ideal partner for Sunext Technology, making our optical technologies available to an existing customer base that is demanding integrated, high performance yet low cost solutions," said Dr. Phil Mak, President of Sunext Technology. "Armed with our robust solution, Broadcom will help drive the next evolution of these devices to the digital home while Sunext continues to deliver products to our customers and core markets."

Sunext Design, Inc. is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with a highly experienced design team.

In connection with the transaction, which closed on Friday, February 29th, 2008, Broadcom will pay up to $48 million in cash in exchange for all of the outstanding shares of Sunext Design's capital stock and for the license rights granted by Sunext Technology. A portion of the consideration payable to the stockholders of Sunext Design will be placed into escrow pursuant to the terms of the acquisition agreement, and a substantial portion of the consideration payable to Sunext Technology for the license rights is subject to the achievement of certain deliverables post-closing. The boards of directors of both companies have approved the transaction. Broadcom may record a one-time charge for purchased in-process research and development expenses related to the acquisition in its first quarter. The amount of that charge, if any, has not yet been determined.

About Sunext Technology Company Limited

Sunext Technology Company Limited, with headquarters in Hsinchu, Taiwan, is privately held and a leading supplier of semiconductor products for Optical Disc Drive (ODD) applications. Sunext was formed in 2003 to capitalize on global demand for ODD silicon and operates design centers in Hsinchu, Taiwan; Taipei, Taiwan; Sunnyvale, USA; Eindhoven, The Netherlands and Shanghai, PRC. For further information visit the Sunext website at: www.sunext.com

About Broadcom's Broadband Communications Group

Broadcom offers manufacturers a range of broadband communications and consumer electronics SoCs that enable voice, video and data services over residential wired and wireless networks. These highly integrated silicon solutions continue to enable the most advanced system solutions on the market, which include digital cable, satellite and IP set-top boxes and media servers, broadband modems and residential gateways, high definition and digital televisions, Blu-ray Disc players, DVD recorders and personal video recorders.

About Broadcom

Broadcom Corporation is a major technology innovator and global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications. Broadcom products enable the delivery of voice, video, data and multimedia to and throughout the home, the office and the mobile environment. We provide the industry's broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art system-on-a-chip and software solutions to manufacturers of computing and networking equipment, digital entertainment and broadband access products, and mobile devices. These solutions support our core mission: Connecting everything®.

Broadcom is one of the world's largest fabless semiconductor companies, with 2007 revenue of $3.78 billion, and holds over 2,500 U.S. and 1,100 foreign patents, more than 7,400 additional pending patent applications, and one of the broadest intellectual property portfolios addressing both wired and wireless transmission of voice, video, data and multimedia.

Broadcom is headquartered in Irvine, Calif., and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. Broadcom may be contacted at +1.949.926.5000 or at www.broadcom.com.