Coperon Technologies Profile

Coperon Technologies was founded in July 2000 by lighting industry experts with the
conviction that lighting manufacturers should be able to manage and communicate
rich data about their products to a wide range of catalog users: architects, engineers,
lighting designers, distributors, suppliers, the sales team and marketing managers.

The lighting industry is well known for the production of excellent paper catalogs and marketing material. However, lighting manufacturers have always faced a nearly impossible challenge: to communicate complex technical data as well as emotional
visual data with the same catalog. Electronic platforms such as the internet,
CD-ROMs and DVDs have greatly facilitated this task. First generation electronic catalogs have partially solved many of these problems but have created new challenges, including the painful task of effectively managing the product databases behind web catalogs.

Therefore, Coperon’s main goal has been to provide lighting manufacturers with
“lighting specific” software tools to assist them in communicating and managing all
types of product information, to allow them to guide their catalog users with a choice
of search patterns to browse product data.

Coperon’s unique iPartner suite comprising Product Expert™, Data Manager™, and Catalog Manager™ has been specifically developed to meet the challenges by
providing customers with a unique lighting industry standard solution.

Softwares

“Lighting-intelligent” search, guided browsing and product data management tools
Coperon’s iPartner™ suite was developed by a team of lighting experts and internet software engineers to provide a highly customizable set of tools for management and communication of lighting product data.

Our lighting intelligent search tools provide your customers, sales team and distributors with fast, accurate and comprehensive knowledge about your products. Key features of our iPartner™ softwares are:

R Product Expert™ advanced parametric search for lighting professionals

R Catalog Manager™ search pattern configurator for creation of unlimited number of guided browsing patterns

R Integrated FastCalc lighting calculation tool

R Integrated Photometric diagram generator tool

R Data Manager™ intuitive management tool for product databases

Services

Coperon provides full service and support to its customers. Our staff of lighting consultants, software engineers and customer support specialists is well trained in both the lighting and software industries. From defining requirements to identifying solutions, programming custom modifications, or performing technical assistance and training, we have the know-how and experience to help you maximize your return on investment from our applications.

ü Data entry services: Coperon Technologies data entry services rely on an experienced team with a specific knowledge in the lighting and electrical industries. Hundred of thousands of references from different manufacturers, for different markets were entered to date building the right expertise at the level of each member of Coperon’s Data Entry team.
If you need to be in control of the data entry process, Coperon Data Entry team can even work directly on your systems to enrich and complete the data. You will be able to monitor our work, measure progress and validate immediately the work achieved.
By end, each data entry project is different and that makes your project unique; we understand your business and that makes us different!

ü Implementation planning & management: Coperon provides a comprehensive implementation methodology, the customer oriented 3D Approach: Design, Deploy & Deliver. The objective of this approach is to combine strategic thinking with progressive technology deployment. The end result is enabling your company rapidly capture the value of the e-technology. Our methodology guides your implementation from the planning stage through system setups, data imports, and eventually through the go-live stage. The methodology includes troubleshooting tips, implementation worksheets, and much more.

ü Comprehensive services: Coperon provides comprehensive consulting, analysis, and programming services. We lead clients through project definition, analysis, design, programming, testing, training, implementation and ongoing support, based on well established and concise programming, documentation, and project control standards.
We realize that our software may not do everything you want – or do everything the way you want it to. Our philosophy is to work with our customers to customize the software where desired to provide that unique functionality.
Using a variety of techniques, Coperon routinely writes interfaces to external systems as required by our customers, based upon their specific needs. This typically includes interfacing to corporate systems for data integration. We have significant experience in developing these interfaces, and can work directly with your staff in any capacity that suits your needs.
A professional, branded image is vital to the success of your business. It represents quality and stability to your customers, generates respect from your competitors, and broadcasts a message of confidence to investors. It’s also important that your website provides value to people who spend the time to visit. Now that use of the web in business has become second nature to customers, it’s crucial that your brand is represented on the Web.
Coperon collaborates with your web design team to integrate your corporate identity into the electronic catalogs developed with our technology. This includes colors, images, page visualization, printing templates and much more.

ü Education & training: Coperon Education is focused on preparing the marketing and IT personnel to get the most from a Coperon implementation. Using a highly interactive, hands-on approach to learning, we help shorten the learning curve considerably. After attending Coperon Education courses, your team members will be able to apply best practices in the development of your Coperon application.

o Coperon Product Expert Workshop
This workshop provides your team with a hands-on introduction to the main functionalities of Product Expert. By learning the capabilities of expert search and guided browsing, your marketing team will learn how to most effectively use the power of Coperon search and browse technology to communicate your products to your customers.

o Coperon Data Manager Workshop
This workshop provides managers responsible for catalog development with a hands-on introduction to the effective use of Coperon’s Data Manager. Your team will learn how to quickly and effectively create new products, modify data and link to additional data such as photographs, free text and photometric file data.

Training by Coperon is always customized to our customer's specific needs, and varies based on the size and complexity of system requirements. The above Workshops are designed according to the profiles of the users, site administrators, products managers, content team. The objective of this approach is to give every user a solid understanding and a strong base to better utilize the power of our software tools.

Partners

Coperon establishes powerful relationships with leading business and technology organizations to combine its e-catalog expertise with each partner’s high-level industry and domain knowledge. This strategy allows us to work more effectively with partners who complement our core competencies so that we can continue to lead the marketplace in the areas in which customers have come to rely upon Coperon.

Coperon partners represent a range of business, technological, vertical industry and solution expertise — and they have one thing in common — they each meet the same high standards of market knowledge, vision, integrity, and customer satisfaction that Coperon sets for itself.

? Strategic alliance partners:

o Relux Informatik AG, Basel is a leader in luminaire databases, lighting calculation and visualization software. Relux and Coperon have made a long term strategical commitment to combine their know-how and technologies with one objective, delivering innovative solutions that meet evolving requirements of both lighting manufacturers and lighting planning professionals. The integration between the two solutions will facilitate data management and will empower the lighting planning process.

o The PROFESSIONAL LIGHTING DESIGN is the only magazine worldwide that is dedicated solely to presenting professional architectural lighting. Conceived as the official organ of the ELDA+ (European Lighting Designers' Association) and the IALD (International Association of Lighting Designers'), PLD concentrates on the presentation of design philosophies, historical background information, theoretical topics, professional issues and the technical aspects of lighting design and application. PLD is oriented to meet the requirements of the lighting designer. The high quality and competence of PLD is documented by its Advisory Board comprising internationally renowned lighting designers and architects.

o Coperon has teamed with Lighting Technologies Inc (LTI) to provide Coperon's core software, Product Expert™, to create powerful digital catalogs to manufacturers in the North American market.
LTI is a leading provider of lighting software, optical design software, and custom solutions worldwide. Since 1982, LTI has provided solutions for every level of the lighting and AEC industry. LTI's unique products allow everyone, regardless of expertise, to effectively design lighting systems and products.

o Lite & Byte has worked closely in partnership with Coperon to develop the LightCalc and Photometric generator functionalities which are part of Coperon's Product Expert™ software.
Since 1996, Lite & Byte have been developing and selling superior lighting calculation and design software, based on its own developed SHEDAR software for lighting calculation, now in use by several thousand lighting specifiers worldwide. The range of services offered by Lite & Byte has been expanded with the opening of a complete photometric laboratory. Besides photometric measurements, the company is now able to provide consultancy for the development of new luminaires, optics and realization of prototypes.

o Coperon Technologies has adopted the Microsoft .NET and Enterprise Servers as its technology framework. Microsoft .NET expands opportunities to act on data and communicate anywhere, anytime, on any device. .NET connected software uses a distributed computing model and builds on open standards like XML to connect PCs and other smart devices. Coperon's software was designed to integrate with Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 and Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 offers a powerful way to build tailored, effective e-commerce solutions. Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 is a complete, Web-enabled database and data analysis package that opens the door to the rapid development of a new generation of enterprise-class business applications that can give your company a critical competitive advantage. SQL Server provides core support for XML and the ability to query across the Internet and beyond the firewall.

? Business Alliance partners:

o India and South East Asia: TM Systems Pvt. Ltd., established in 1985 is leading software and IT services provider that has pioneered in delivering technology driven strategic business solutions to diverse industries. TMS has specialized in providing Banking and Financial services software solutions. It is an ISO-9001:2000 certified company that emphasizes on delivering quality based software and IT solutions and services that meet various requirements of its clients and increases their business values.

TMS Systems Pvt.
804, Aditya Building, Ellisbridge,

Ahmedabad 380006. INDIA

T: +079-30087800
F: +079-26462556

saumil@tmspl.com
www.tmspl.com

Customers

? iGuzzini: Since 2003 Coperon has been closely cooperating with the IT and marketing team of iGuzzini, a worldwide leader in architectural lighting, by personalizing Coperon parametric search and guided browsing technology for use as new sales and marketing tools for iGuzzini.The new iGuzzini web catalog, complete with a wide range of over 5000 architectural lighting products, was launched in March 2005 on the iGuzzini corporate website. In April 2005, the new CD-ROM catalog will be distributed to over 75,000 lighting professionals worldwide. Both tools are based on Product Expert™ search and browsing technology from Coperon. iGuzzini's marketing and product management team has also recently adopted Data Manager™ for comprehensive management of their electronic catalog tools. Coperon's technology was selected and implemented to provide all iGuzzini customers, partners and team around the globe instant access to the extremely rich and detailed database of iGuzzini product-related data.

? Sonepar Italia: The Italian subsidiary of Sonepar Distribution, Europe's largest wholesale distributor of lighting and electrical materials, asked Coperon to develop internal selling and communication tools for Sonepar Italia, its network of electrical and lighting specialists throughout Italy. This set of electronic tools is being made available to the entire sales force of SoneparItalia in a countrywide rollout, providing the Sonepar sales and technical team with instant access to product and photometric data from their most important suppliers. The goals of the project are to increase sales team productivity, sales team knowledge of lighting suppliers' products, improve level of lighting expertise among the sales and service team and allow more time for other valuable sales activities.

? Nardeen: Nardeen Lighting Co. Ltd. is a specialized lighting company established in 1987 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. At present, Nardeen is one of the leading manufacturers of fluorescent lighting systems in the Gulf region. With its team of skilled lighting technicians and exceptional customer service support personnel, Nardeen brings creativity, quality and professionalism to the client. The company's philosophy is based on its commitment to innovation, which has led to significant strands in the industry's technological advance in the region. Nardeen's new electronic catalog developed by Coperon adds to Nardeen's offer of unique services to its customers: the ability to design, supply and maintain creative lighting systems for projects of any size. An ISO 9001 accredited company, Nardeen maintains branch offices in Jeddah and Al-Khobar. Working with the finest and most renowned international lighting manufacturers, the company has continuous access to the highest technical available in the industry and has always been a reliable partner providing innovative lighting solutions in a vast spectrum of indoor and outdoor applications.

? Concord:marlin: Coperon and Concord:Marlin have been working together since the end of 2003 to best adapt Coperon's unique parametric search and guided browsing technology to Concord:Marlin's rich range of architectural lighting products. After the development and thorough testing of a prototype, Coperon is developing the new web catalog for the entire range of Concord:Marlin products. Concord:Marlin's new web catalog based on Coperon's parametric search and guided browsing technology will be made available in spring 2006 to thousands of architects, engineers and lighting designers around the world. The final phase of the project, customization of Data Manager™ for use as the main internal tool for electronic catalog management, is scheduled planned for the May 2006.

? FLOS: The Flos brand is recognised worldwide by the design and architectural community for its trend-setting innovative design in its lighting products and communication tools. When Flos selected Coperon to provide the technology platform for its architectural lighting products catalog, Coperon's greatest challenge has been to provide powerful search and guided browsing technology to the Flos catalog, without reducing the emotional impact of the well-known Flos look & feel. The architectural lighting web catalog was launched in April 2005 while Flos marketing and product management will be adopting Data Manager™ for management of the new web catalog database by spring 2006. Flos and Coperon are currently busy developing a new e-catalog for Flos core design products which combines Flos's high level of emotional and stylish content with the power of Coperon's expert search and guided browsing technology.

? SYLVANIA: Coperon and Sylvania Fixtures are collaborating on the development of a new electronic catalog for its range of luminaires for industrial and commercial applications. Sylvania's comprehensive portfolio of luminaires is used in an extremely wide range of applications including offices, educational facilities, leisure, industrial facilities and residential areas. Therefore Sylvania's diverse array of catalog users requires much more than one search pattern for its catalogs. In order to assist all its users in the navigation of its catalogs, Coperon and Sylvania have designed several guided search patterns in the new web catalog which will be launched in early summer of 2006.

? REGIOLUX: Based in Koenigsberg, Germany, Regiolux has been a major player in the German lighting industry for more than 50 years. Regiolux selected Coperon in a competition to find the most appropriate electronic catalog system to power its new web catalog for both its Regiolux and Lightwerk product collections. The new catalog was launched at the end of 2005. A joint Regiolux-Coperon team is working closely together to finalize personalized tools which will facilitate the daily work of both the Regiolux internal team and its customers. Coperon and Regiolux have a formed a joint workgroup which is working closely together to develop special features for the electronic catalog, including integration to the existing Regiolux ERP and paper catalog publishing software systems.

? SLI-Lighting International: Sylvania Lighting International is the principal company behind many of the world's best known lighting brands. The SLI focus is dedicated to the lighting industry, designing, manufacturing and marketing a diverse range of lighting fixtures for architectural, industrial, commercial, residential and outdoor applications. Coperon is working closely with SLI Europe group IT and marketing communication management to develop powerful web catalogs, aimed at effectively communicating the wide range of products and associated critical data to the customers of each of the companies in the group. By implementing Coperon's parametric and guided browsing technology in a series of separate web catalogs, each brand will be able to maintain its distinct image and market focus.

? Lumiance: Lumiance offers a wide range of contemporary designed luminaires, intended for lighting medium to large projects such as shops, offices, hotels and restaurants… Therefore Lumiance asked Coperon to provide its catalog users, partners such as lighting and electrical distributors, and specifiers such as contractors, lighting specialists and interior decorators with guided browsing according to the specific needs of each. This required the development of several different search patterns, but each one clearly displaying the powerful simplicity and competence of the Lumiance product range. The new web catalog is scheduled to go live in the first semester of 2005.

? Artemide: Artemide, renowned for its permanent innovation in lighting design, chose Coperon to develop its online product catalogue. Coperon combined its strengths with leading Italian web designers Reply XYZ and technology integrators Vidiemme to create a comprehensive web presentation for the wide range of Artemide catalog users. The complex project has resulted in a highly flexible and powerful e-catalog, providing simple visual browsing for consumers while allowing lighting professionals to have access to complete access to all technical product data, online lighting calculation and downloads to relevant downloads. The e-catalog was released together with the completely new Artemide group website at the end of March 2006.

? Arlus: Arlus is a leading supplier of architectural lighting products for a wide range of applications including offices, schools, museums and retail. Together with Arlus product and IT managers, Coperon developed the Arlus web catalog as a new communication tool for key Arlus customers: architects, lighting designers and electrical engineers. Arlus plans to use this new electronic tool to facilitate the launch of a large number of new product lines during the next several months.

? Lightology: Lightology has the largest and most progressive collection of contemporary lighting in North America. Lightology’s goal is to be the premier contemporary lighting company for both homeowners and design professionals. The company is already a lighting industry leader in its high percentage of web-based business. With these ambitious goals in mind, Lightology selected Coperon to integrate its powerful search and data management technology into Lightology’s existing e-business platform. Coperon’s technology will power Lightology’s growing e-catalog, performing at the very heart of its e-business division. The first exciting new e-tools will be released in mid 2006.

? VIA: Coperon, together with VIA Verlag, publisher of Professional Lighting Design magazine, have developed a special expert search tool for PLD subscribers and lighting designers and consultants worldwide. This search tool powers the new product showcase in Via Publishing's newest venture, Via-light.com, a comprehensive lighting website designed for the industry. Lighting designers are able to quickly search by any criteria through new and classic products from many of the leading European architectural lighting manufacturers. VIA's goal is to provide its subscribers an independent tool which allows browsing of all new and "classic" products, and once a lighting designer finds the products of interest, he or she is directed directly to the manufacturer's website for more detailed information.

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Information are extracted from original texts available on the company web site: www.coperon.com

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