Trimble Acquires Assets of C3 to Further Strengthen its Connected Farm Solution

Acquisition Enables Trimble to Provide Farmers' Trusted Advisors with Cutting-Edge Data and Decision Recommendations

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Dec 12, 2013, 06:30 ET

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Dec. 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) announced today that it has acquired the assets of privately-held C3 of Madison, Wis. The acquisition will enable Trimble to provide unique soil information as well as decision recommendations to farmers' trusted advisors—such as agronomists, Trimble resellers or Ag retail suppliers. Farmers will be able to view the C3 data and recommendations from their trusted advisor on the Connected Farm™ dashboard, a Web portal that provides one centralized location for farmers to view key information impacting their operations. To align with Trimble's brand agnostic strategy, the data can be applied to all manufacturer equipment types. Financial terms were not disclosed.

C3 combines crop information with detailed soil data to enable a more complete assessment of the site-related factors that impact crop yield, quality and health. The C3 Soil Information System™ (SIS) solution is a collection of innovative tools and techniques for digital, 3-D mapping of soil characteristics—analyzing 120 unique soil and topographic properties. With SIS, it's now possible to precisely map the top four feet of the earth's surface using above and below ground sensors combined with GPS. The data is processed with a series of algorithms resulting in more than 60 precise 3-D soil models for physical and chemical soil characteristics including root zone depth, soil texture, plant available water, compaction depth and severity, macro and micro nutrient levels, soil nutrient holding capacity, and salt and toxicity concentrations.

"With the combination of C3 technologies, the Connected Farm and Trimble's recent acquisitions of RainWave and IQ Irrigation, Trimble is able to provide a farmer's trusted advisor with a unique toolset," said Joe Denniston, vice president for Trimble's Agriculture Division. "For example, they will now have access to detailed soil analysis, rainfall totals, precise irrigation amounts, as-applied seed and fertilizer rates, weather forecast and decision recommendations, enabling them to provide better answers to their clients, and leading to more precise farming. This can result in input savings, increased yield, and environmental benefits such as reduced nitrogen leaching into waterways as a result of more precise irrigation plans and input applications."

"Trimble's acquisition of C3 brings leading-edge technologies to Ag service providers worldwide," said Dan Rooney, CEO and founder of C3. "Improving agricultural productivity through smarter management is essential to meeting future food demands, and we believe that C3 technologies will be an important part of the Trimble solutions that help address the challenge."

SIS enables farmers to:

Improve crop quality by assessing the variability within a field and treating different zones according to their unique needs
Increase output from sub-par field areas by revealing the factors that are limiting yield, which enables the farmer to design a strategy to bring all field areas to maximum growing capacity
Optimize the use of water, fertilizer and soil amendments by targeting applications
Design, prepare and manage fields in a way that optimizes productivity
Implement more sustainable farming methods by incorporating tools to conserve natural resources, reduce chemical inputs and restore native fertility

By providing a greater understanding of the physical and chemical characterization of the soil, including how inputs move through the soil, agronomists and other Ag service providers will be able to help farmers implement a more effective solution to resolve the unique challenges of each area of their field. For example, if a field has areas of high soil compaction, the farmer may be over watering or over fertilizing to accommodate for areas of low productivity without realizing that the main issue is lack of root expansion. SIS helps service providers pinpoint problem areas, develop a more effective strategy for improving output, and provide a recommendation such as the exact depth and area to break up hard soil.

Additional C3 products include PurePixel™ Vegetation Mapping software and Agriculture Forensics™ solutions. PurePixel provides processing of vegetative aerial imaging for crop health analysis, and removes interfering factors such as soil, cover crops and shade which leads to vastly improved interpretability and analytics. Agricultural Forensics uses a combination of proprietary technologies, SIS and PurePixel to reveal the relationship between a crop and its environment. This combination of technologies produces detailed maps of more than 100 site and crop characteristics for analysis, which provides a better understanding of the complex factors that are contributing to the problem (as most crop yield or quality issues are caused by a combination of site characteristics).

About C3

Founded in 2011, C3 combines crop information with detailed soil data to enable a more complete assessment of the site-related factors that impact crop yield, quality and health. C3 products include the Soil Information System (SIS) solution, a collection of innovative tools and techniques for digital, 3-D mapping of soil characteristics; PurePixel Vegetation Mapping software, which provides processing of vegetative aerial imaging for crop health analysis; Soil Inventory, which combines multiple precision agriculture technologies to help determine field variability; Agricultural Forensics techniques for processing soil information and vegetative aerial imaging to understand complex issues; and Soil Imaging Penetrometer, a miniature soil imaging system that views and analyzes in-situ soil imagery collected at high resolution.

For more information, visit: www.c3crop.com.

About Trimble's Agriculture Division

Trimble's Agriculture Division is a leader in precision agriculture, GPS and guidance solutions that help customers operate farm vehicles and implements more efficiently, save on input costs and increase yield and productivity. To ensure better decision making, Trimble offers an integrated operations management solution called Connected Farm that provides information exchange across the entire farm using industry-leading software and hardware. Additional Trimble solutions include vehicle and implement guidance and steering; application control for seed, liquid and granular products; laser- and GPS-based water management technology; and a harvest solution.

For more information on Trimble Agriculture, visit: www.trimble.com/agriculture.

About Trimble

Trimble applies technology to make field and mobile workers in businesses and government significantly more productive. Solutions are focused on applications requiring position or location—including surveying, construction, agriculture, fleet and asset management, public safety and mapping. In addition to utilizing positioning technologies, such as GPS, lasers and optics, Trimble solutions may include software content specific to the needs of the user. Wireless technologies are utilized to deliver the solution to the user and to ensure a tight coupling of the field and the back office. Founded in 1978, Trimble is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.

For more information, visit: www.trimble.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding the business operations and prospects of Trimble, including the impact of the asset acquisition on Trimble's Connected Farm solution. These forward-looking statements are subject to change, and actual results may materially differ due to certain risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause or contribute to changes in such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to (i) realizing the anticipated benefits of the acquisitions, (ii) Trimble's ability to successfully integrate C3 solutions with Trimble's Connected Farm solution, (iii) the performance, availability and customer adoption of the C3 products, and (iv) the risks and uncertainties associated with unexpected expenditures or assumed liabilities that may be incurred as a result of the acquisitions. More information about potential factors which could affect Trimble's business and financial results is set forth in reports filed with the SEC, including Trimble's quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and its annual report on Form 10-K. All forward-looking statements are based on information available to Trimble as of the date hereof, and Trimble assumes no obligation to update such statements.

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SOURCE Trimble