Kevin W. English
Chairman, President and CEO
Covisint, L.L.C.

Remarks Before the Automotive News World Congress
Hilton Hotel
Prague, Czech Republic

June 25, 2001

Good evening. It's a pleasure to be here tonight.

I'd like to express my congratulations to all the winning companies. Special congratulations to Ms. Marie-Christine Caubet of Renault, the Automotive News Woman of the Year.

Thank you, Monsieur Schweitzer, for your kind invitation to share the dinner speaking time with you. And of course, thank you for that kind introduction.

My thanks, also, to Automotive News Europe for hosting this extraordinary congress.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

This is my first trip to Prague. I must tell you, I am very impressed with the city and the people. I only wish I could extend my stay a few more days so I could explore the city some more.

I know the hour is late, so I'll do my best to keep my remarks relatively brief. Besides, I don't want to keep you from the wonderful Afterglow Reception being hosted by Borg Warner tonight.

My name is Kevin English, and I am the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Covisint, the global, independent business-to-business exchange for the automotive industry.

Covisint was created to provide the automotive industry with leading collaborative product development, procurement and supply chain tools. These tools enable users to reduce costs and bring efficiencies to their business operations.

It sounds simple, doesn't it?

If only it were…

For the past year and more, the business world has been abuzz with new catch phrases and concepts. Business-to-business, or B2B, was one that seemed to garner the most attention… and discussion.

Let's just think about it for a moment. Business-to-business.

The actual concept has been in place for millennia. Business-to-business has been here since the Egyptians traded silks and precious gemstones along the Nile. In fact, it probably goes back much further in time.

Today, however, everyone seems to have discovered business-to-business all over again. The fact is, it's been with us all along. We just didn't seem to refer to it in that fashion.

What has made it more prominent in our lives has been the way it now can be conducted. No longer are business people restricted only to lengthy, expensive travel; slow and onerous mail delivery; or unreliable telephone connections.

Today, communications has been improved many thousand fold. And it has happened thanks to the remarkable progress made in the development of the Internet.

Today's ubiquitous Internet - still somewhat a novelty only a scant five years ago - now has become the backbone of global enterprise for industries of all sizes and types.

Technological progress has enabled the Internet to become the medium for business communications and interaction.

Of course, for the auto industry, it has become required.

How did it happen?

As you may be aware, in 1999, both Ford and General Motors announced their individual, independent initiatives in the world of business-to-business. Dubbed "Auto-Xchange" by Ford and "TradeXchange" by GM, these initiatives each sought to leverage the power of the Internet to reduce costs and eliminate inefficiencies for their founders and the supply chains that supported them. It was a simple concept with an emphasis on procurement applications - primarily auctions - and some initial steps into the world of collaborative e-commerce… or what we at Covisint refer to as c-commerce.

It was clear that auctions alone were not going to be able to drive significant efficiencies through the industry except, perhaps, in a limited fashion through a reduction in the cost of procured materials. As a result, those initial forays into collaborative e-commerce took on an increasingly important role.

Not long after the introduction of these two competing exchanges, the automotive supplier community took notice of a rather obvious disconnect. If the goal of the exchanges was to drive out costs and inefficiencies, what purpose was served for suppliers - especially the larger Tier 1s such as Borg-Warner, Valeo, Sagem, Hutchinson, Siemens, Bosch, Delphi and Freudenberg - to have to support two distinctly different systems. After all, a large Tier 1 supplier who served both GM and Ford would be forced into the unwelcome position of having to support both initiatives. It would mean a duplication of efforts to support the distinct protocols of each of the two systems.

More disconcerting was the prospect of having to support even more distinctly different initiatives. After all, once DaimlerChrysler launched its effort, others would follow. The large Tier 1 suppliers each could establish their own versions. Soon, the number of differing exchanges would outpace the industry supply chain's ability to support them.

The entire concept seemed doomed from the start.

Fortunately, the leaders of the industry's suppliers are smart. They came to Ford and GM and said, "Can't you come together on a common platform we could all support?"

So, taking the suppliers' concerns to heart, Ford and GM decided to come together with DaimlerChrysler for the unprecedented announcement to create a common platform for collaboration, procurement and supply chain management for the global automotive industry. Since the initial announcement last year, Renault, Nissan and PSA Peugeot Citroën have joined their North American colleagues as Covisint partners.

The revolution had begun.

Today, the automotive industry is remarkably different than it was just fifteen months ago.

Covisint, as the joint initiative has become known, has become a force to be reckoned with in the automotive industry.

It took a lot of "heavy lifting" to get where we are today. In the past year, we

• Created an organization that managed to support the individual requirements of seven of the most competitive automotive companies in their suppliers
• Established a business plan with depth and substance
• Hired a seasoned, experienced management team
• Successfully managed through an in-depth, extensive review of every aspect of our business by both the Federal Trade Commission and the comparable German regulatory agency, known as the Bundeskartellamt
• Developed and deployed a robust suite of applications that serve specific needs for the automotive industry
• Began operations, generating significant revenue
• Developed a strong North American, European and Asian presence, giving us a significant global footprint

Today, Covisint includes among its stakeholders six of the world's largest automotive manufacturers - DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Renault and, most recently, PSA Peugeot Citroën. These industry leaders have joined with a large number of automotive suppliers, including Valeo, Sagem, Hutchinson, Delphi, Niter, Johnson Controls, Magna and others to collaborate, procure and manage their supply chains through the solid, scalable, reliable and secure technology offered through Covisint.

The technology and applications we've introduced have delivered significant results.

Through the end of May this year, Covisint has

• Conducted more than 250 auctions with a throughput value of over $33 billion
• Supported more than 14,000 catalog transactions on over 200 catalogs containing more than 2.5 million individual items
• Registered more than 500 seats for our collaborative product development and quote management products,
• Sold more than 1,500 seats sold and in use for our supply chain management offerings, and
• Registered more than 1,000 companies to participate in our important initiative