Product Innovation Needed Now More than Ever: Aberdeen Announces 2009 Product Innovation Executive (PIE) Achievement Award Nominees

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - April 14, 2009) - Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), announces the nominees for the 2009 Aberdeen Industry Achievement Awards of Excellence in Product Innovation. Aberdeen's Product Innovation and Engineering Research Practice is pleased to announce that this year's nominees hail from an extensive list of formidable players in the industry and each have an impressive success story that led to their nomination.

Award nominees are derived from Aberdeen's research over the past 12 months, and our Product Innovation and Engineering team of senior analysts has identified the following organizations as award nominees in the following 5 categories: Innovation in Technology, Performance Excellence, Process Excellence, Business Evolution, and Executive Stewardship.

And the nominees are:

1. Innovation in Technology Award: Enterprise that has leveraged technology solutions to solve pressing business issues to positively impact company performance.

Nominees:

--  Alcoa Wheel & Transportation Products
--  Northrup Grumman
    

2. Performance Excellence Award: Enterprise that has harnessed the performance impacts of value chain activities and mastered methodologies for financial, operational, and customer-centric performance excellence.

Nominees:

--  John Deere
--  Motorola
--  Honeywell Aerospace
    

3. Process Excellence Award: Enterprise that has demonstrated process ingenuity, agility, flexibility, and scalability to address evolving business requirements.

Nominees:

--  Black & Decker
--  Rockwell Collins
    

4. Business Evolution Award: Enterprise that has demonstrated the ability to manage the flow of information across internal functional practices to achieve demonstrable business growth.

Nominees:

--  Novartis
--  Goodrich Corporation
    

5. Executive Stewardship Award: Enterprise that has overcome tremendous obstacles and achieved new performance heights as a result of direct involvement and leadership from exceptional executive management.

Nominees:

--  Pitney Bowes MapInfo
--  Ford
    

These esteemed organizations will be highlighted at Aberdeen's 2009 Product Innovation Executive Summit, April 29-30 in Chicago. The award winners will be announced by Aberdeen's President and Chief Research Officer during an award ceremony on Day One of the Summit.

"Now in its third year, the Product Innovation and Engineering Summit has become the foremost resource for product manufacturers and business leaders seeking actionable recommendations for improving product development and engineering performance," states Chad Jackson, Vice President, Product Innovation & Engineering Research at Aberdeen.

A snapshot of some of the presenting organizations at the summit include:

Delphi            Sealy                         Raytheon
Tyco Healthcare   Eaton Corporation             Wachovia
Avaya Labs        Knapheide Manufacturing Co.   Titoma Ltd.
Blue Highway      Masco Corp.                   Motorola

To participate or for more information, please visit: http://summits.aberdeen.com/index.php/PIE.html.

Technology vendors and solutions providers can participate in the summit as event sponsors to get their products in front of the decision makers that matter. For sponsorship information please visit http://summits.aberdeen.com/index.php/Product-Innovation-and-Engineering-Summit/product-innovation-summit-sponsors.html.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions. For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890.

© 2009 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
451 D Street, Suite 710
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1928
Telephone: (617) 854-5200
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com

Contact Information: Media Contact: Chad Jackson Aberdeen Harte-Hanks (512) 284-8080 Chad.jackson@aberdeen.com