Gloucester, Mass., August 8, 2006 — TradeStone Software, the leader in delivering domestic and international sourcing, product lifecycle management, and order management through the Unified Buying Process, today announced that the company's CEO, Sue Welch, has been named to World Trade magazine's prestigious annual Fabulous 50 Plus One list.

Each year, World Trade selects the 51 companies, facilities, trends and visionaries that are forging the future of world trade based on nominations from the publication's editorial board of industry leaders, expert consultants and journalists in the field. This year, the list is populated by global behemoths such as Toyota, Boeing and Walt Disney Company, United States senators and the House of Representatives, and institutional thought leaders from MIT and Stanford Business School. As CEO of TradeStone, Welch represents the only software company to be recognized on this year's list for its innovations in global trade.

Welch's presence on the Fabulous 50 Plus One signifies not only her career-spanning dedication to her vision of creating truly collaborative global commerce communities, but her success in achieving that vision with TradeStone. For more than 20 years, Welch has designed and implemented global sourcing and supply systems. She is frequently asked to speak about the use of technology to promote world trade and was one of only three technology company CEOs invited to address a full delegation of the World Trade Organization on the role of technology in leveling the playing field between developed and developing countries. She founded three successful companies, each delivering increasingly more sophisticated software to handle the complexities of international trade transactions. Now, at TradeStone's helm, she has succeeded in meeting her goal with TradeStone's Unified Buying Process.

"In today's global economy, American and European executives face a tough balancing act. On one side are international labor issues, price pressures, the demands of shorter production cycles and the need for rapid responses and on the other is the importance of delivering innovative products. To be successful they must have a solid understanding of the production processes of suppliers in Indonesia, Costa Rica and other third world countries. For suppliers, their ability to participate in the world economy hinges on their capacity to seamlessly collaborate with Fortune 2000 organizations," commented Sue Welch, CEO, TradeStone Software. "As organizations advance through the stages of global sourcing, it is imperative that the technology they use to collaborate between buyers and sellers supports decision making based on price, delivery and quality. They need a true unified process across organizations, technologies and geographies. World Trade is among the most influential publications in the global trade industry, so I am both excited and humbled that TradeStone's Unified Buying Process has been recognized by World Trade's editorial board for its role in facilitating this collaboration and enabling world trade."

TradeStone's Unified Buying Process addresses the growing imperative within organizations to create a product development and sourcing strategy that is simple and intuitive, making it possible to buy goods from a supplier across the world as easily as they can from a vendor across the street. TradeStone's TradeStone Suite is the first Web-based composite application for global sourcing that offers one view of the entire buying process across multiple systems and geographies, uniting planning, product design and development, sourcing, global order management, logistics and finance into the Unified Buying Process. Leading retailers and manufacturers such as Federated Department Stores, the Children's Place Retail Stores, Inc., American Eagle Outfitters, Novi Footwear, Pacific Alliance and Guitar Center rely on TradeStone to make international trade objectives a reality.

As other winners on this year's list, Hau Lee from Stanford Business School, Yossi Sheffi from the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, and C. John Langley, Jr. from the Georgia Institute of Technology, TradeStone believes that supply chain responsiveness is a direct result of visibility for all supply chain stakeholders. The Unified Buying Process hinges on one view of all project statuses: receipt of raw materials, production progress including the multitude of quality testing milestones, containerization information, and trace and track for shipments. With all supply chain stakeholders working towards the same floor set date, the same unit projections, the same margin expectations, the team can work together to ensure time to market, quality, and cost goals.

Legislators on this year's list have made security and accountability their top concerns. For example, Ted Stevens, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, is introducing legislation this year to improve security measures for ports, railways, and trucking routes. Even the entire Sarbanes-Oxley Law was named to the list because it has focused on mitigating supply chain risk through accountability. Again, the Unified Buying Process supports these measures with transparent product histories which capture key financial information.

For example, the TradeStone Suite captures key transactional data such as when the order was committed to versus executed, where and when inventory exchanged ownership, and when items were received at ports or DCs. TradeStone's work with electronic Packing Lists has already gone above and beyond current security methods with 3-pronged audits that cross-reference the data about the shipment with the data associated with the original purchase order. The TradeStone system validates the consistency and accuracy of shipments against three key criteria: 1) country of origin; 2) product classification; and 3) valuation. It also checks to ensure that the factories shipping the goods have met the requirements of its social compliance and supply chain security policies. With this particular validation in place, several of TradeStone customers anticipating Tier 3 status in the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) program.

With retailers and manufacturers already utilizing the Port Tracker developed by the NRF and Global Insight, also a winner on this year's list, they can quickly evaluate changes to their transportation routes. The TradeStone Suite quickly compares cost and lead times in these crunch "what-if" situations so buyers and merchants can make data-driven decisions about the true cost of time-to-market.

It's clear to see that the Unified Buying Process was ahead of its time, but 20 years of championing it have put Sue Welch and TradeStone Software in very fine company indeed.

"Sue Welch is a pioneer and an innovator in the global trade industry. Her revolutionary approach to unifying global sourcing made her an obvious choice for the Fabulous 50 Plus One," said Neil Shister, Editorial Director, World Trade. "Welch and her team have delivered technology and business processes that have fostered world trade and united 15 person companies with 250,000 person companies. We are proud to recognize her on this year's list."

About TradeStone Software, Inc.
TradeStone Software enables retailers and manufacturers to plan, design, collaborate on and purchase goods from across the world as easily as from across the street. TradeStone’s Unified Buying Engine uses Web services technology to layer across an organization’s existing infrastructure while its modular software fills in buying process gaps to provide a single view, access and interaction across the entire procurement process. The first and only complete solution for global sourcing, product lifecycle management, and unified order management, TradeStone’s intuitive "No Training" technology helps people throughout the supply chain to collaborate globally, enabling users to focus on speeding innovative products to market. Marquee customers include American Eagle Outfitters, The Children’s Place, Deutsche Woolworth, Ocean State Job Lot, Pacific Alliance and Federated Department Stores. TradeStone Software is based in Gloucester, Mass. and can be found on the Web at http://www.TradeStoneSoftware.com.

Tania Stockbridge
TradeStone Software
978-281-3723
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