Dortmund/Hamburg, March 07, 2006 – The manufacturer of bathroom fittings and bath technology, Grohe Water Technology AG & Co. KG, headquartered in Hemer, Germany, has commissioned the IT service provider MATERNA GmbH to convert Grohe's staff portal, used by 5,500 employees, to operate on the basis of CoreMedia. Existing intranet services will be consolidated to a single system based on CoreMedia CMS 2005. In a following step, the information platform will be developed into a process portal. This will utilize the portal solution offered by technology partner abaXX Enterprise Portal 5.0. Grohe is a leading provider of water technology solutions such as fittings and showers for the bathroom and kitchen. The company is the largest fittings manufacturer in Europe and the largest exporter of bathroom fittings worldwide.

As an initial step, MATERNA migrated the existing intranet to CoreMedia CMS. Following this, the new portal will be implemented and adjusted to meet the specified requirements. The new solution is to go online at the headquarters in Hemer, Germany, in May 2006. MATERNA is supporting Grohe in project planning, coaching, conception and implementation, as well as in the customization of the solution. The decision to work with the selected technology platform represents the result of a strategic and technology consultation process between Grohe and MATERNA.

In the long term, Grohe aims to develop its staff portal and to integrate new functions, such as skill management, web-based training and single sign-on features, as well as incorporating existing applications and HR processes. The old version of the portal was characterized by a number of disadvantages: information was not easily accessible, and key functions were missing.

Therefore, in this initial phase, Grohe decided to introduce the new staff portal to its facilities in Hemer, Germany, and to migrate the content into the selected CMS solution. Within this, the expandability and multiple-language support offered by CoreMedia CMS was decisive for its selection. Grohe aims to successively introduce the concept of a unified staff portal at its international facilities, thereby taking the decentralized intranets offline.

In the future, all internet, intranet and extranet solutions from Grohe are to be based on products from CoreMedia and abaXX as standard technologies. The CoreMedia platform is a Java-based framework, conforming to standards, open and platform-independent. It is effortlessly integrated into existing IT infrastructures, service delivery platforms and third-party systems, and is equally easy to operate. Content can be accessed more quickly, redundant steps are eliminated, and the content can be re-used on different media formats automatically as desired.

In addition, the abaXX portal offers a convenient process-modeling tool. This enables Grohe to offer users a consistent process interface.

At CeBIT 2006, CoreMedia is presenting technology for the distribution and use of and business with digital content in hall 3 at booth D17. The CoreMedia software for Content Management and Digital Rights Management supports the mobile and networked future lifestyle. It makes new fields for the digital business accessible – flexible, fast and future-proof. This year's partner companies at the CoreMedia booth are Aperto, GETIT, IBM, INFO AG, Kapow