Record Demand for MindManager™ Productivity Software Boosts Mindjet™

17 February, 2005

Mindjet™ predicts continued growth in 2005 as it introduces new business solutions, expands channel sales and enters new global markets

Mindjet™, the leading provider of software for visualising and managing information, today announced a record year for 2004, showing dramatic growth and success with Global 2000 accounts and government agencies worldwide. Mindjet™ boosted revenues to more than $20 million – an increase of 60 per cent over 2003. At the same time, the California-based company achieved profitability while increasing its global workforce by more than 20 per cent. The company also signed Oracle veteran Robert Gordon as its new CEO and Brightmail veteran Francois Lavaste as vice president for global marketing and strategy.

"Mindjet’s mapping solution is designed to enable individuals and teams to efficiently capture and share ideas and plans with easy links to relevant corporate information," said Mark Levitt, vice president for Collaborative Computing at IDC. "Rising volumes of information to manage and increasing pressures to innovate make collaboration a higher priority than ever."

Mindjet was recognised with a number of prestigious awards in 2004: PC Plus’s Editor’s Choice award, 4 ½ Stars from PC Magazine, a Jolt Award from Software Development magazine, CeBIT Best of Show, and Mindjet founders, Mike and Bettina Jetter and Michael Louis, were named 2004 Entrepreneurs of the Year by Ernst & Young.

Mindjet CEO Robert Gordon predicts continued strong growth for 2005. “Mindjet provides paradigm-changing – yet immediately understandable – technology that solves a key challenge faced by Global 2000 companies: Business teams use Mindjet’s MindManager software to combine intellectual assets with corporate data in a way that sparks thinking, enables timely decision making and drives productivity. Customers response to our products is overwhelmingly very positive – they immediately ‘get’ the value of our technology.

Unlike collaboration infrastructure technology, such as web conferencing; Instant Messaging or e-mail for sharing ideas and information; or traditional productivity software for authoring and presenting, Mindjet technology provides an intuitive, interactive environment where dynamic collaboration can take place.

Mindjet has set the pace in information visualisation through its thought leadership in this growing market and with its continued introduction of new technologies and solutions. In November 2004, Mindjet announced a partnership with CommerceQuest to develop an application which will enable line-of-business users to quickly create and modify business processes.

On 13 February, 2005, Mindjet released MindManager Accelerator for Salesforce.com, originally released as a preview edition in 2004. The Accelerator enables sales professionals and teams to visualise and manage customer information. The new product adds to the recognised value of existing CRM systems by giving teams a fast and easy way to enter and analyse customer information, and to communicate account status with other team members, sales management and executives.

“Key to Mindjet’s success has been a multi-year plan to increase our presence through resellers, distributors and VARs,” said CEO Gordon. “Mindjet revenues from indirect sales have grown from single digits in 2001 to nearly 65 per cent today. Sales channels are really working for us. We will continue to look to them for future growth.”

In 2004 Mindjet increased its geographical scope beyond North American and Europe, moving into markets in Scandinavia and BeNeLux and increasing its presence in Asia. Mindjet saw significant increases multi-license sales as Global 2000 companies understand the value that MindManager software brings to enterprise collaboration. Current customers include Siemens Group, SAP, BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Whirlpool, 3M, UBS, HP, the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force.