Sterling Commerce Customers Recognized for Progressive Use of Business Integration Solutions

COLUMBUS, OH--(Marketwire - April 15, 2009) - Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) company, today announced that its customers, Sauer-Danfoss and Savage Arms, were selected by Managing Automation as winners in the fifth annual Progressive Manufacturing 100 Awards (PM100). The 2009 PM100 recognizes the top 100 projects that have achieved distinction in mastery of the Progressive Manufacturing concept, which advocates manufacturing business transformation supported by advanced technology and underpinned by a set of key business and technology disciplines.

Both Sauer-Danfoss, a worldwide leader in engineered hydraulic, electric and electronic systems and components for mobile equipment, and Savage Arms, a leading firearms manufacturer, have undertaken enterprise-wide projects to connect, communicate and collaborate with their business partners and customers using Sterling Integrator. Sterling Integrator (formerly Gentran Integration Suite), a flexible integration platform for enterprise and business-to-business (B2B) integration, enables the orchestration of business processes, high-volume electronic message exchange, complex routing, translation and flexible interaction with multiple internal systems and external business partners.

"The projects undertaken by Sauer-Danfoss and Savage Arms dramatically underscore how advanced technology can help manufacturers address today's challenges, especially during a time of economic uncertainty," said David R. Brousell, Editor-in-Chief of Managing Automation Media. "These companies are leading the way to a better future for all industries."

As a global manufacturer, with global customers and suppliers, Sauer-Danfoss is using Sterling Integrator to gain operational efficiencies and better serve its customers by having one global B2B platform that works together seamlessly with its global enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. As its global B2B platform, Sterling Integrator enables Sauer-Danfoss to quickly onboard and communicate with more than 130 of its business partners, regardless of B2B standards or protocols. This flexibility and adaptability to rapid change also has improved data accuracy by reducing manual entry tasks, improved productivity and business processes, as well as strengthened business relationships.

"Sauer-Danfoss is a diverse company with a focus on providing value for our customers and being easy to do business with. Our goal is to become a preferred partner in business and meet the needs of mobile equipment manufacturers globally," said Patrick Weil, e-Commerce Development Supervisor, Sauer-Danfoss. "Sterling Integrator provides us with a powerful solution for enterprise integration with our global ERP and B2B integration with all our trading partners worldwide. This has been vitally important in helping to onboard new customers, suppliers, financial institutions, and logistics partners in order to expand our business globally, a key strategy in today's market."

Savage Arms implemented an innovative end-to-end demand planning process to receive orders and ship directly to key customers under a tight service-level agreement of 24 hours. In this process, Sterling Integrator acts as the integration hub to translate inbound and outbound files and messages and assist with the exchange of electronic data interchange (EDI) and other types of data from its customers. By automating this process, Savage Arms was able to gain visibility to information upon which to base business decisions and improve its agility in adjusting B2B processes to accommodate changing business demands.

"As a manufacturer of firearms for more than 100 years, Savage Arms has earned the reputation of innovation and unsurpassed out-of-the-box accuracy at an affordable price," said Bob Browning, director of Supply Chain Management at Savage Arms. "Our end-to-end demand planning system, with Sterling Integrator as the foundation, enables us to achieve operational efficiencies that can be passed along to our customers and shareholders."

"We congratulate Sauer-Danfoss and Savage Arms for their innovative use of Sterling Commerce software to remain competitive during a difficult economic period and prepare for the future," said Richard Douglass, global manufacturing industry executive, Sterling Commerce. "Their implementations are a testament of the role integration solutions can play in extending traditional ERP and other legacy systems to enable manufacturers to outpace their competition using supply chain agility and adaptability as a differentiator."

The winners of the Progressive Manufacturing 100 Awards will be honored at the Progressive Manufacturing Awards Gala, which will be held June 11, the last day of the 2009 Progressive Manufacturing Summit, at the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota, Florida. More information on the awards can be found at http://www.managingautomation.com/awards/index.aspx.

About Sterling Commerce

Sterling Commerce, an AT&T Inc (NYSE: T) company, helps customers thrive in a global economy by connecting their business communities, processes, people and technology. More than 30,000 customers worldwide use Sterling Commerce solutions for business process integration, multi-channel selling, and supply chain fulfillment, and payments management to optimize business performance inside and outside their enterprise. Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, Sterling Commerce has offices in 24 countries around the world. More information can be found at www.sterlingcommerce.com