Alex Lee Selects Mirapoint For Secure Enterprise Email.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 8, 2003

- Grocery Retailer Connects One Hundred Stores in the Southeast with Email, Webmail Solution

Mirapoint today announced that Alex Lee, whose holdings comprise one of the country's largest food retail, wholesale and food service operations, has selected the Mirapoint messaging platform for its integrated desktop email, Webmail, anti-virus and anti-SPAM solution. Like an increasing number of enterprises, Alex Lee needed to simplify the ongoing maintenance of its core email services and found that Mirapoint provided a cost-effective, easy-to-manage solution that provided all the functionality and reliability required of the company's users.

"Our existing solution had hit the wall and no longer provided the reliable service required for our users," said Ellen Roberts, director of PC and web applications for Alex Lee. "During our evaluation of alternatives, we looked at a number of options, including other enterprise solutions, and a hosted service. In the end, the Mirapoint system was the only one that provided an optimized, secure, high-availability solution that was cost-effective, easy to deploy and easy to manage."

"Mirapoint's integrated-system approach to messaging provides a compelling value to a broad range of customers that are looking to reduce costs, improve quality of service, and boost security," said Dana Gardner, research director of the enterprise and Internet infrastructure group at Aberdeen. "With the recent Sonic Drive-In and Alex Lee wins, Mirapoint is demonstrating increased traction with enterprise customers as they seek a beneficial blend of features, reliability, and lower operating costs over what many email products offer."

Alex Lee is a holding company for three southeastern food companies including Merchants Distributors, Inc. (MDI), a wholesale food and merchandise distributor; Lowe's Food Stores, Inc. (Lowes Foods), a supermarket operator; and Institution Food House, Inc. (IFH), a food service distributor. Once the company decided to standardize on Mirapoint for its employees, the entire migration was accomplished in two weeks--the actual changeover to the Mirapoint system was accomplished in a single evening. After deployment, Alex Lee employees found they particularly liked the Mirapoint Webmail features, which gave users the ability to securely access their email from home or while on the road using any standard Web browser. Another valuable feature for these users was Mirapoint's integrated anti-virus function. Prior to the Mirapoint installation, email was the largest entry point for viruses. A dedicated person working 20 hours a week was required to manually update email filters to slow the deluge of viruses. Once the Mirapoint system was installed, Alex Lee could shift that IT resource to more value-added activities and free their employees to concentrate on their work.

"The Alex Lee deployment is a demonstration of the value Mirapoint's turnkey messaging solutions provide enterprises fed up with costly, software-only solutions that are insecure and unreliable," said Bill Messer, vice president of sales for Mirapoint. "For businesses like Alex Lee, messaging has become a vital communications tool that needs to provide a variety of integrated services. Mirapoint's 'single platform, multiple services' approach is emerging as the solution-of-choice for enterprises, service providers and educational institutions. In addition to providing an unfailingly reliable and cost-effective messaging function, Mirapoint also adds integrated services--like address book, group calendar, anti-virus and anti-spam--that have a measurable impact on business productivity."

About Mirapoint

Founded in 1997, Mirapoint designs and manufactures specialized, dedicated Internet messaging solutions optimized for fast deployment in service provider, enterprise, education and government environments worldwide. Mirapoint's cost-effective and modular solutions provide customers with high performance, high reliability, built-in security and easy integration with legacy messaging infrastructure. Mirapoint is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., with offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information on Mirapoint, call 800-937-8118 or visit its Web site at http://www.mirapoint.com/.

Mirapoint is a registered trademark of Mirapoint, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.