Authoria to Acquire Advanced Information Management (AIM)

Authoria, Inc., the leader in personalized, Web-based human resource communication, announced today it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire Advanced Information Management, Inc. (AIM), a leading provider of enterprise performance, compensation and talent management software to leading corporations. The new Authoria will be totally dedicated to providing strategic Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions focused on aligning corporate and individual performance to drive shareholder value.  Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.  The closing of the acquisition is expected to occur this month.

“Today, organizations have to transform their people into a competitive advantage,” said Tod Loofbourrow, Authoria’s president and chief executive officer.  “By aligning their employees with corporate goals, organizations can directly drive business value by rewarding their people appropriately.”

Loofbourrow continued, “For the past 14 years, AIM has been helping leading organizations reward their people for achieving specific business objectives.  Meanwhile, Authoria’s just-in-time knowledge and coaching solutions for managers and employees have been in use with some of America’s largest employers.  The combination delivers a powerful, integrated suite of enterprise pay-for-performance solutions.”

“Organizations need to understand the importance of connecting their employees to their corporate strategies. To drive real bottom line business value, organizations not only need to deliver a truly integrated compensation and performance management solution, but they also need a way to engage tens of thousands of users in a way that makes sense,” said Chuck Clessler, principal at AIM. “What makes this combination truly strategic is Authoria’s ability to convey just-in-time communication, education and knowledge to employees and managers, enabling successful transactions.”

Over the past several months, Authoria has been strategically aligning its products and services to support performance and compensation management. (See announcement of Authoria Manager Advisor, March 15, 2004) With the acquisition, Authoria announces the availability of the Authoria Advisor Series, a blended suite of strategic HCM solutions that will allow organizations to:

• Offer a fully integrated pay-for-performance system addressing compensation, talent, and performance management
• Integrate just-in-time knowledge and coaching for managers and employees
• Enable managers to do their jobs more effectively
• Create alignment by empowering employees
• Promote and track system usage
• Increase consistency across managers and employees fostering corporate policy compliance
• Drive shareholder value by aligning people with corporate objectives

“Integrating pay-for-performance and HR processes requires the involvement of employees and managers,” said Jim Holincheck, research director, Gartner. “For these people to effectively participate, the processes must be enriched with the necessary content, knowledge and information. We use the term ‘business process fusion’ to describe the next generation of business applications that weaves the necessary content, knowledge and information into end-to-end business processes. The opportunity exists for companies to provide these types of solutions to help drive corporate value and move HR beyond purely administrative tasks.”

About Authoria
Authoria’s strategic human capital management (HCM) solutions help employers support enterprise-wide pay-for-performance initiatives and reach their high-level business objectives through their people. Authoria combines compensation and performance management with just-in-time knowledge and coaching for employees and managers, driving shareholder value at over 200 leading organizations, including Boeing, Pfizer, and Unocal. Authoria provides a strategic approach to effective communication, empowering employees to better understand and use benefit, policy and total compensation information. Visit www.authoria.com/news8 or www.aimworld.com

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Note to editors: Authoria is a registered trademark and the Authoria logo and Authoria Advisor Series are trademarks of Authoria, Inc. in the U.S. and in other countries. All other names are used for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.  The software is protected by U.S. Patent Nos. 6,505,183, 6,633,859, 6,640,216 and other patents pending.