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i2 User Group and i2 Announce Ken Sharma Award for Excellence Winners at Directions 2005

Independent research firm AMR Research judged customers on deployments of i2 software

DIRECTIONS 2005 - ORLANDO -- November 9, 2005 – i2 Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ITWO) and the i2 User Group today announced the industry winners of the Ken Sharma Award for Excellence. Winners were chosen from around the world and honored for ground-breaking best practices in their i2 software implementations during a ceremony held in conjunction with the i2 User Group’s annual conference, Directions. The awards are named in memory of i2 co-founder Ken Sharma. An independent panel of AMR Research analysts judged the entries and selected winners based upon the quality of the application, implementation depth and breadth, time to value, innovation, and overall value.

In the process industry, the following i2 customers were recognized: JFE Steel – Innovation; Nicholas Piramal India – Value; and Noveon – Breadth and Depth. In high technology, the following were recognized: ADTRAN – Value; Fairchild Semiconductor – Breadth and Depth; and ON Semiconductor – Innovation. In the consumer products industry, the following were recognized: Philips Consumer Electronics – Value; Sprint Nextel – Breadth and Depth; and VF Corporation – Innovation.

“These awards represent what the i2 User Group is really about – sharing best practices among peers. The companies recognized are clear leaders in their fields and terrific examples of supply chain excellence,” said Bob Stanley, i2 User Group Director. “Investing in supply chain technology prepares these companies for streamlined operations and a competitive advantage in the future.”

“This year’s submissions were very impressive. The winners are true industry leaders who have adopted innovative approaches and practices through their implementations," said Lora Cecere, Research Director with AMR Research. "AMR Research is honored to be part of the selection process and the promotion of technology leadership that drives bottom line results.” 

“The companies honored with the Ken Sharma Award for Excellence are laying the groundwork for the future. Establishing supply chain excellence today will enable future competitive advantage and return on investment,” said i2 Chief Customer Officer Barbara Stinnett. “These awards represent many hours of collaboration and hard work on the part of the customer as well as i2. We have great partnerships with these companies and we’re privileged to honor them for their supply chain excellence.”

Process Industry Winners

JFE Steel Corporation - Innovation
JFE Steel Corporation was established in April 2003 following the merger of two of Japan's largest steel companies, NKK Corporation and Kawasaki Steel Corporation. This merger expanded the company’s management scale and management resources considerably. This gave the JFE Steel management flexibility but also raised new issues such as redundancy and cumbersome management in the decision-making process.

Key priorities for the company’s management include information sharing and visibility, agility, and a simplified management structure. JFE Steel uses i2 solutions to bring together its sales and production planning across the entire organization.

According to JFE Steel, i2 solutions provide a powerful weapon for coping with the fast-changing global steel environment. JFE Steel has various production sites and delivers its made-to-order products to numerous customer locations. The company-wide integrated sales and production planning system enables the company to establish a management infrastructure for reacting to changes flexibly and create a more agile business.

Nicholas Piramal India Limited - Value
Nicholas Piramal India Limited (NPIL) is a leading pharmaceutical company in India. NPIL implemented i2 solutions across its organization to centralize its planning activities and forecast its domestic business activities. According to NPIL, successful use of these solutions has resulted in a 20 percent improvement in forecast accuracy and a reduction of material inventories by almost 30 percent. Working with i2 has also resulted in the synchronization of material planning with capacity manufacturing and more efficient production schedules.

Noveon – Breadth and Depth
Noveon is a leading global producer of advanced specialty chemicals, polymer-based formulations and chemical additives for a broad range of consumer and industrial applications. Noveon continues to build upon its successful foundation as a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Lubrizol Corporation. Noveon implemented i2 solutions to establish integrated global planning processes and tools across multiple instances of ERP systems. According to Noveon, benefits include more efficient planning, data visibility, collaboration, production planning and procurement planning capabilities. The company has also achieved considerable value from these improved business processes across selected production sites.

High Technology Industry Winners

ADTRAN - Value
ADTRAN is a leading supplier of network access equipment for telecommunications applications. The company carried a significant amount of inventory and implemented i2 solutions to operate its business with significantly less inventory and free up working capital. According to ADTRAN, the company is now capable of building its plans based on information from its suppliers as well as its own demand information. The company has been able to significantly decrease its inventory levels and reduce its planning cycle time from five days to less than one day. ADTRAN also reports the company has enhanced its inventory visibility through daily inventory feeds from its contract manufacturers. Adtran has reduced inventory, lowered costs, increased velocity and significantly increased customer satisfaction with the utilization of the i2 tool set.

Fairchild Semiconductor – Depth and Breadth
Fairchild Semiconductor is a global company focused on the design, manufacturing and marketing of high performance power products critical to today's leading electronic applications in the computing, communications, consumer, industrial and automotive segments. Fairchild utilizes i2solutions at all plants and divisions across the company for demand forecast and response, supply and demand matching, strategic capacity planning, factory loading, supply allocation, order promising, and regional and customer warehouse demand-pull replenishment. According to Fairchild, through the use of i2 solutions the company has been able to increase the frequency of its planning cycles and decrease the manual labor involved in generating plans, allowing Fairchild to respond rapidly to quickly changing market and supply conditions.

ON Semiconductor - Innovation
ON Semiconductor is a leading provider of Power Management solutions and a broad-based supplier of standard Discrete Products and Integrated Products (IC’s). According to ON, i2 solutions enable the company to evaluate the inventory impact of cycle time changes, service level changes and inventory savings achieved with improved forecast accuracy. The company decreased its capacity planning time from two-three weeks to just one week and inventory planning, previously performed once per month, is now performed weekly. These improvements have greatly increased the company’s ability to respond to marketplace changes.

Consumer Products Industry Winners

Philips Consumer Electronics - Value
Philips Consumer Electronics (PCE) is a leading global player in the consumer electronics market, offering a wide range of products including TV, video and audio products as well as computer monitors, set top boxes, consumer communication and accessories products. The company uses i2 solutions to increase the velocity and responsiveness of business activities through increased planning frequency. This allows the company to respond to demand changes more quickly and improve the reliability and visibility of the supply chain. According to Philips, the company’s production operations are now more efficient, and in the future it anticipates the ability to increase productivity as the quality of its production plans increases.

Sprint Nextel- Depth and Breadth
Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services to consumer, business and government customers. The company implemented i2 solutions to help decrease costs by reducing inventory, while improving service levels and field sales operations. In selecting a solution, Sprint Nextel sought to improve its business processes, within its wireless and Sprint North Supply divisions, while providing the best possible communications experience for its customers. The company performs real time purchase forecast and order collaboration with its device suppliers, enabling a quick reaction to any fluctuations in demand and effective responses to its customers. The i2 solutions help provide Sprint Nextel with a formal, structured demand consensus process, as well as optimized demand and supply planning processes.

VF Corporation - Innovation
VF Corporation is a global leader in branded apparel including jeanswear, outdoor products, intimate apparel, image apparel and sportswear. To meet the requirements of its ever changing business environment, VF uses i2 solutions for production planning and demand fulfillment across multiple business units. These solutions are used for master planning and capacity planning, allocation planning and order promising, network optimization and data maintenance and reporting.

According to VF, the company has saved millions of dollars leveraging i2 solutions across its business. The company reduced its planning cycle time by 75 percent, increased customer service levels by 15 percent and reduced obsolescence. The company’s on-time shipping performance has improved and inventory levels have decreased, enabling the company to free up company assets. VF recognizes value in more accurate plans and better visibility as well as improved efficiencies in the utilization of resources and quality of inventory.

About the i2 User Group
The i2 User Group (www.i2-usergroup.org) is a volunteer organization made up of i2 customer companies and their employees. Founded in 1997, the i2 User Group is a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the issues and needs of the users of the entire suite of i2 products. Through networking and educational opportunities, the i2 User Group provides members countless opportunities to share information and experiences on the selection, implementation and effective use of i2 products.

About Ken Sharma
Vice chairman of i2 from 1988 until his death in 1999, Ken Sharma's impact on the development of supply chain planning and the future of e-business continues to resonate today. Throughout his career, Sharma worked to define and refine the concepts of global optimization, multi-enterprise planning, master planning and supply chain planning.

His leadership and vision not only helped to make i2 a top provider of intelligent e-business solutions, but also to change the paradigms by which industries understand concepts such as supply chain planning and technology. Most important, even as Sharma changed the face of business, he never flagged in his dedication to customers. He said, "This work of mine has been a great source of satisfaction. If I've been able to help at least one person, that will be enduring."

About i2
i2 helps business leaders make better supply chain decisions. i2's flexible next generation solutions are designed to synchronize demand and supply across ever-changing global business networks. i2's innovative supply chain management tools and services are pervasive in a wide cross-section of industries; 19 of the AMR Research Top 25 Global Supply Chains belong to i2 customers. Learn more at www.i2.com.

i2 Cautionary Language
This press release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including forward-looking statements regarding the customer's ability to implement or integrate i2 solutions successfully and in a timely fashion, receive expected functionality and performance, or achieve benefits attributable to i2 solutions. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from those projected. For a discussion of factors which could impact i2's financial results and cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, please refer to i2's recent filings with the SEC, particularly the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed November 8 , 2005 and the Annual Report on Form 10-K/A filed August 9, 2005. i2 assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this news release.

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For more information please contact:

Kirsten Monberg
i2 Corporate Communications
469-357-4966
kirsten_monberg@i2.com

Beth Roberson
i2 User Group
469-357-3417
beth_roberson@i2.com

 

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