Cambridge, UK and Cleveland, OH, December 7, 2006

Granta and ASM International Sign Five-Year Strategic Agreement

Collaboration will advance materials information resources for sectors including aerospace and medical devices

Granta Design and ASM International (The Materials Information Society) today announced a new five-year strategic collaboration to advance materials information resources that are critical to the engineering process. The new agreement extends, deepens, and renews the existing successful partnership and includes a commitment to co-develop new products serving specific engineering sectors.

ASM International provides a vast library of professional reference content, enormous experience in developing and using such content, and the backing of a membership of 38,000 materials scientists and engineers. Granta’s unique expertise and technology helps engineering enterprises to capture, manage, and apply information about metals, ceramics,
composites, and plastics. The partners have collaborated on projects including the delivery of ASM’s Materials Information Online service via the Internet and support for the Material
Data Management Consortium (MDMC), an international project to evelop best practice materials information management with leading aerospace, defense, and energy organizations.

The immediate focus of the new agreement is the Materials for Medical Devices database system, which will be the first comprehensive online database to support medical device design. The GRANTA MI software powers the database and an ASM committee of world-leading experts from the medical devices industry has supervised content development. Future projects will target materials for micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and materials for alternatives to petroleum-based energy. The collaboration will also upgrade and evolve existing ASM Materials Information Online products.

The partnership began in 2000 when ASM made a $1.6m investment in Granta, taking a seat on the Granta board. Stanley C. Theobald, ASM’s Managing Director, says: “Over the past six
years Granta has established itself as the global leader in materials information management, based on its innovation, on-time delivery, and listening carefully to the needs of its customers. We look forward to continuing our work together to enhance the value of ASM information resources and to develop new products that serve the materials engineering community.”

Dr David Cebon, Managing Director at Granta, comments: “We have made outstanding commercial and technological progress during the first phase of our partnership with ASM. ASM is a world leader in materials information, and we are delighted with their decision to extend and deepen the partnership for five more years. This agreement is a terrific validation of Granta’s approach.”

LINKS TO FURTHER INFORMATION:

ASM International - www.asminternational.org

Announcement of first strategic agreement, May 2000

Granta's solutions for aerospace and medical devices.