CombineNet Founder Dr. Tuomas Sandholm to Receive IAAI Award for Application of Artificial Intelligence in Strategic Sourcing

PITTSBURGH, PA—June 26 , 2006

Dr. Tuomas Sandholm, Founder, Chairman and Chief Scientist of CombineNet, will present his paper Expressive Commerce and Its Application to Sourcing at the Eighteenth Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-06). Dr. Sandholm will be honored with the American Association of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Deployed Application Award for his insight and achievement in applying artificial intelligence to strategic sourcing activities at the IAAI conference on July 18-20, 2006 in Boston, MA.

Dr. Sandholm's paper discusses the application and impact of artificial intelligence in CombineNet's proprietary optimization technology, used for advanced decision guidance primarily in the field of strategic sourcing. CombineNet's optimization technology analyzes problems with massive amounts of disparate data to guide users to the optimal solution. In advanced sourcing applications, this technology enables corporate sourcing and logistics teams to quickly evaluate hundreds of thousands of supplier proposals alongside corporate business rules and preferences, to find the best award allocations. Across more than 250 advanced sourcing events, CombineNet has produced savings of more than $2.5B on an aggregate append of more than $19B.

We have not yet begun to grasp the application of computer science to the world's most pressing issues, inside and outside of industry," said Sandholm. "I'm honored to be recognized by this award, and I look forward to presenting my paper at the conference in July"

Dr. Sandholm's award-winning paper "Expressive Commerce and Its Application to Sourcing" is available for download at http://www.combinenet.com/documents/learncenter.php.

In addition to his role at CombineNet, Dr. Sandholm is a professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. He has been internationally recognized for his efforts as the recipient of several of the most selective academic awards in the field, including the prestigious Computers and Thought Award, presented by the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), and the Sloan Research Fellowship, presented by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He has also received the National Science Foundation Career Award and the Association for Computing Machinery Autonomous Agents Research Award.

Dr. Sandholm received his Ph.D. and M.S. in computer science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and an M.S. with distinction in Industrial Engineering and Management Science from the Helsinki University of Technology in Finland.

About CombineNet

CombineNet, the advanced sourcing technology company, helps companies achieve the absolute best value and lowest total cost of ownership for goods and services. CombineNet's Advanced Sourcing Application Platform enables companies to engage in Expressive Commerce™, the strategic sourcing initiative that allows buyers and sellers to communicate supply and demand more expressively, collaboratively and strategically. The result is a win-win for both buyer and supplier, where greater innovation and efficiency are driven into the supply chain. CombineNet's ASAP consistently produces 10, 15, even 20 percent greater actual cost savings than other e-sourcing solutions, and has delivered more than 45x ROI for the largest businesses in the world including General Mills, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Siemens and others. For more information, visit www.combinenet.com.

Media Contacts:

Greg Holt
CombineNet Inc.
Director of Marketing
Phone: 412.471.8200
gholt@combinenet.com