MKS Announces First Quarter Fiscal 2009

Closing cash balance at July 31, 2008 was $11.5 million, down from $12.9 million at April 30, 2008. During the quarter, MKS repurchased 707,000 shares at a total cost of $1.1 million under the terms of its Normal Course Issuer Bid.

“MKS maintained its strong momentum with solid performances in every category of revenue,” said Philip Deck, CEO of MKS Inc. “Along with the solid revenue gains, MKS showed excellent cost control in spite of the higher Canadian dollar, boosting operating profits significantly.”

“We continue to reap dividends from our increasing stature as the leader in ALM technology,” said Michael Harris, president and COO, MKS Inc. “As analyst acclaim for MKS Integrity continues to grow, we see the impact directly in our increasing ability to engage the accounts we have targeted.”

Financial Review
Revenue for the first quarter of 2009 was $15.4 million, up 13 percent from $13.6 million from the first quarter of the prior fiscal year. Net income for the first quarter of 2009 was $0.6 million, or $0.01 per share, compared to a net loss of $0.3 million, or $0.01 per share, reported in the first quarter of fiscal 2008.

First quarter fiscal 2009 Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) revenue was $13.4 million, up 15 percent, compared to revenues of $11.7 million reported in the first quarter of fiscal 2008.

Outlook
MKS is committed to profitable organic growth in its primary operating segment, ALM. The Company strives to maintain a balance between increasing current shareholder returns and funding investments for long term growth. The steady growth of maintenance revenue offers significant potential for operating margin improvement over the long term. Similarly, increases in the scope of the Company’s field sales and services teams, and in the capacity of the Company’s engineering organization represent the most significant enablers to the Company’s long term growth, both requiring immediate commitments of cash and recognition of costs with the future returns extending over several years.

The Company plans for slower growth in operating margins than it could otherwise achieve in order to fund investments in sales, marketing, and engineering needed to achieve strong long term revenue growth. The largest uncertainty in maintaining the balance between profitability and long term revenue growth is the variability of license revenue on a quarterly basis. This variability is expected to continue as the average size of transactions may increase as quickly as license revenue. The Company also expects a continued decline in the Interoperability business of approximately 10 percent annually.

Investor Presentation Details
The Company will hold its Annual Investor Presentation and Update (AIP) on September 3rd, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. EDT to provide an update to investors and to discuss its first quarter performance. The AIP will be held at the Toronto Board of Trade, 1 First Canadian Place, Meeting Room C/D, 4th Floor. The presentation will be available on the Company’s Web site following the meeting.

For summarized financial information, please click here

About MKS
MKS is the rapidly growing thought leader in application lifecycle management, which enables software engineering and IT organization to seamlessly manage their worldwide software development activities. With its flagship product, MKS Integrity, MKS offers support for all software development activities through a single enterprise application, resulting in better global collaboration and higher productivity. MKS supports customers worldwide with offices across North America, Europe and Asia. For more information about MKS, visit our Web site at www.mks.com.

Copyright © 2008 MKS Inc. MKS is a registered trademark of MKS Inc. All other trademarks mentioned in this release are the property of their respective owners.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made. When used in this document, the words "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events and are subject to such risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes the expectations represented by such forward looking statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that those expectations will prove to be correct. Many factors could cause our actual results to differ materially from the statements made including those factors detailed from time to time in filings made by the Company with Canadian securities regulatory authorities. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should assumptions underlying the forward looking statements prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described herein as intended, planned, anticipated or expected. The Company does not intend and does not assume any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

For further information contact:
Douglas Sawatzky, Chief Financial Officer, MKS Inc.
Phone: 519-883-3252
Email: dsawatzky@mks.com