• Artisan – Aonix merger is the catalyst for future market consolidation through partnerships and acquisition of complementary products
• Atego will offer integrated Application Development tools and services across architecture, systems, software and hardware for global engineering customers
• As the leading independent supplier, Atego will continue to support industry standards and competitor integrations for maximum customer choice
• Combined global footprint results in significant operations in the USA, UK, Germany, France and Italy

San Diego CA, USA and Cheltenham, UK – 20th January 2010. Artisan® Software Tools and Aonix® have merged to create a new, stronger independent force in the mission- and safety-critical systems and software development tools market. The merged company is named Atego™ and headquartered in San Diego CA, USA and Cheltenham, UK. Artisan Software Tools is the world’s largest independent supplier of industrial-grade, collaborative modeling tools for complex, mission and safety-critical systems and software and Aonix is a leading supplier of critical systems development tools, virtual machines and services for real-time/embedded Java and Ada solutions.

Atego offers design and development tools and services for modeling architectures, complex mission and safety-critical systems and software, along with Ada and Java development solutions. The full product suite also includes tools for requirements interchange, co-simulation, tool-chain integration, process authoring and deployment. The combined global footprint of the merged companies results in significant operations in the USA, UK, Germany, France and Italy. Atego is the starting point for future market consolidation and an ‘engineering focused’ integrated tool chain encompassing architecture, systems, software and hardware.

The management, employees and existing shareholders continue to own the majority of the combined group, with backing from leading institutional investors ETV and Spark Ventures. James B. Gambrell (former CEO of Artisan) has been appointed as Executive Chairman of Atego, and will focus on the company’s strategic direction and future M&A activities. Pierre Cesarini (former CEO of Aonix) now serves as the CEO of Atego and is responsible for the merged company’s worldwide operations. In addition to the appointment of the Chairman and CEO, the existing management teams will be merged into one.

“This is a decisive move that accelerates our strategy of complex systems tools market consolidation. Artisan started this consolidation with several acquisitions in 2007 and 2008, plus its latest acquisitions of Extessy and Brass Bullet, during the last quarter of 2009 – and the merger with Aonix gives our combined operations the scale to better serve our customers” said James B. Gambrell. “In addition to the clear strategic benefits of combining these two, highly complementary organizations and product families, we can create substantial scale and gain access to new growth opportunities.  Even at such a challenging time within our industry, both organizations have achieved success, allowing us to combine and play a market-leading role.  Together with our customers and partners and further acquisitions to come, we will shape the industry for years to come.”

“We have created the leading independent supplier of application development tools for the mission- and safety-critical engineering sector with this merger,” commented Pierre Cesarini. “Both our companies are founded on proven customer success, world-class engineering, and best-of-breed products and services. In sharp contrast to our competitors, our consolidation program brings together a suite of complementary tools and services with minimal overlap. This further reinforces our position as the leading independent tools vendor in our markets. Independence is important to us and we remain fully committed to open, market-unifying standards and interoperability, to reduce complexity and cost for our customers, while providing more choice.”

Atego’s San Diego and Cheltenham headquarters will be complemented by significant sales and support operations in the USA, UK, Germany, France and Italy. All Artisan and Aonix employees will be transitioned to Atego and their strategic engineering centers in San Diego (CA, USA), Tucson (AZ, USA), Cheltenham (UK), Wolfsburg (Germany) and Paris (France) will continue to advance the development of the combined product suite.

“Over the past two years, Artisan has focused on enhancing its value proposition through the expansion of its product and service offerings,” said Chris Rommel, Analyst in VDC’s Embedded Software and Tools Practice.  “This merger will also allow Atego to offer its customers an even more robust solution set that spans products categories and design methodologies and offers engineering organizations solutions to address a wide range of engineering challenges across the development cycle.”

About Atego:

Atego™ is the leading independent supplier of industrial-grade, collaborative development tools for engineering complex, mission- and safety-critical architectures, systems, software and hardware.  Atego delivers a stable, robust working environment to thousands of users across an extensive range of complex applications in demanding engineering sectors such as aerospace, defense, automotive, transportation, telecommunications, electronics, and medical. Atego delivers the highly reliable, real-time embedded virtual machine solution (Aonix PERC®) for running Java™ programs deployed today and has the largest number of certified Ada applications (Aonix ObjectAda®) at the highest level of criticality. Atego’s standards-based tool suite, Artisan Studio®, provides comprehensive support for the leading industry standards, including OMG SysML™, UML® and Architectural Frameworks. Atego Workbench™ provides a fully integrated, collaborative engineering framework for the trouble-free deployment and maintenance of best-in-class tools for mission and safety-critical systems and software development. Atego’s tools deliver on the promise of an integrated collaborative development environment – allowing architecture, systems, software and hardware engineering teams to Work as OneSM – from concept through to delivery, maintenance and support.  Founded in 2010 in a merger between Artisan Software Tools and Aonix, Atego is headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA and Cheltenham, UK with offices in France, Germany, Italy and the UK and supported by a global distributor network.