New Technologies From AVEVA and Autodesk Alliance Mark Spectacular First Year

October 20, 2004 � ISEIT 2004 � Houston, Texas -- Only one year after announcing their alliance, AVEVA Group plc (LSE:AVV), the foremost engineering IT solutions and services provider and Autodesk, Inc., the world�s leading design software and digital content company, have unveiled two exciting new technologies for the process, power and marine industries. The demonstrations of Final Designer and VANTAGE Plant Engineering P&ID were made to the industry's most senior figures at the International Symposium for Engineering IT in Houston. They illustrate the synergy and cooperation between the two leaders of formerly incompatible approaches to digital design.

The methods of handling engineering information are considered to be among the biggest influences on profitability in plant and marine design. Traditionally, EPC companies have either indexed vital information onto drawings or, alternatively, extracted completed drawings having built an accurate digital model to begin with. The alliance was formed to open the exchange of information between Autodesk and AVEVA's solutions. The companies expect the showcasing of the first two technologies to be met with great excitement at the Symposium.

VANTAGE Plant Engineering P&ID features a complete, portable schematic drawing solution that can be used off-line by anyone familiar with AutoCAD� Software and then synchronised with the master project database through a sophisticated control procedure. The 'Final Designer' solution delivers an AutoCAD interface for the enhancement of final construction drawings which synchronise with subsequent changes to the master plant model.

The use of engineering design technology, particularly in heavy industries, has become crucial to the delivery of major capital projects in the last two decades. With the increase of global competition, Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) companies find themselves bidding for multi-million dollar projects and having to perform against ever-more stringent profit margins as plant Owner Operators demand that projects be brought on line more quickly, cost effectively and with better handover of information.

David Wheeldon, AVEVA�s Group Product Development Director commented: "We have achieved productive information exchange between two fundamentally different architectures. These announcements show what a great first year the alliance has had. For our customers, they demonstrate our dedication to helping them achieve a profitable approach to every area of their project work.�

Mark Strassman, Senior Director of Marketing for the Platform Technologies Division at Autodesk said, �Our work with AVEVA underscores Autodesk�s commitment to help process, power and marine companies create, manage and share design and related data to develop projects efficiently and cost-effectively, and gain competitive edge.�

About Autodesk 

Autodesk is the world's leading design software and digital content company, offering customers progressive business solutions through powerful technology products and services. Autodesk helps customers in the building, manufacturing, infrastructure, digital media, and wireless data services fields increase the value of their digital design data and improve efficiencies across their entire project lifecycle management processes. 

www.autodesk.com

About AVEVA 

AVEVA Group plc is one of the world�s foremost and fastest-growing lifecycle engineering IT solutions and services providers to the oil and gas, paper and pulp, power, chemical, pharmaceutical and shipbuilding industries. Listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE:AVV), the Group reported pre-tax profits for the year ended March 2004 of GBP 6.1 million on a turnover of GBP 38 million, a growth in turnover of 113% in five years.

The Group has a history of groundbreaking innovation that spans five decades. Serving over 1100 clients, AVEVA has a dominant position in many market sectors both on and offshore. In May 2004, the Group acquired Tribon Solutions AB, the market-leading shipbuilding solution company and now serves 75% of the world's top 20 shipbuilders.

The Group's clients include leading plant Owner Operators and engineering contractors such as 3M, ALSTOM Power, AMEC, BASF, Daewoo Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME), Dalian New Shipbuilding, Du Pont, Electricit� de France, Halliburton, Hanjin Heavy Industries, Hitachi, Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard, Hyundai Mipo Dockyard, Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Kawasaki Shipbuilding Corporation, Krupp Uhde, Kvaerner, Merck, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding, Petronas Carigali, Samsung Engineering, Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, Shell and STX Shipbuilding.

Headquartered in Cambridge, England, AVEVA Group plc and its operating subsidiaries currently employ more than 450 staff worldwide with offices in England, Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, KSA, Malaysia, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Sweden, South Korea and the USA.

About VANTAGETM 

VANTAGE, the collective name for AVEVA�s four-family plant lifecycle product suite, offers proven, integrated and versatile solutions for engineering IT. Well known for its Plant Design Management System (PDMS), it also addresses data management, project management, engineering design, visualisation, third party software integration, procurement and connecting the business enterprise on a common foundation. VANTAGE represents AVEVA's commitment to harnessing the best of technology to answer the needs of good engineering and offers the engineering world's most advanced globally-distributed project work solution. VANTAGE is developed upon a proven and evolving technology that has been deployed on major global projects for over 25 years.

About PDMSTM 

VANTAGE Plant Design Management System (PDMS) is a data centric, multi-disciplinary solution for 3D process plant design featuring applications and reference data for every engineering discipline. It differs from conventional 3D approaches by not requiring a drawing engine, but producing graphics directly from a single, coherent data model of the entire plant. First launched in 1976, PDMS's architecture was designed to evolve: it has done so through many leading operating systems during the progress of the IT industry. The system offers compatibility with all previous versions and many other leading industry systems. 

www.aveva.com