AlphaServ.com's Internet Division Signs Agreement With I-Search to Enhance Online Recruiting Solutions for Employers, Recruiters, and Job Applicants.

SANTA ANA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 9, 1999--Alpha Microsystems (Nasdaq: ALMI), now doing business as AlphaServ.com(SM), a premier provider of true multi-vendor services to the information technology marketplace, which also markets information management technologies through its AlphaCONNECT(R) Internet division, has signed a multiyear agreement with Interactive Search Inc. (I-Search).

Based in Los Angeles, I-Search develops and markets data processing and database services designed to significantly improve the means by which job seekers and employers find each other.

According to Douglas J. Tullio, chairman, president and chief executive officer of AlphaServ.com, with the growing presence and popularity of Internet-enabled job search and recruitment tools, I-Search needed a way to more efficiently gather and process an ever increasing amount of data from a variety of Internet locations, especially online job listings.

"Our patent pending AlphaCONNECT Object Recognition Engine (ORE) technology enables I-Search to collect and process significant amounts of information -- quickly and accurately -- from a wide array of Web sites and in many diverse formats," Tullio said. "Our agreement with I-Search is based on a multiyear licensing and support fee, as well as an upside potential based on the success I-Search has in bringing this functionality to its market."

This information management technology, known as AC Spotlight(TM), was originally introduced in 1998 as a tool to expand the functionality of Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) executive management intranet. Matthews Studio Group (Nasdaq: MATT) recently announced that it entered into a strategic alliance with AlphaServ.com whereby it will use AlphaCONNECT's technologies to develop applications and solutions for the entertainment industry via the Internet and World Wide Web.

John Reese, founder and chief executive officer of I-Search, said, "Many of our customers have asked for the ability to automatically gather job listings from their corporate Web sites for subsequent posting to one or more public career centers. Extracting this data from ever-changing Web pages -- with precision -- is a challenging task, and is critical to this service.

"After carefully defining the needs of our customers, we concluded that AlphaCONNECT technologies best delivered the capabilities we were looking for, and the AlphaCONNECT team is proving to be a valuable partner."

"Although the Internet offers a tremendous amount of information," said Denny Michael, vice president of marketing of AlphaServ.com, "the challenge for most businesses is transforming this viewable data into actionable knowledge. AlphaCONNECT technologies make it possible for companies such as I-Search to access and process Web-based information quickly and efficiently to achieve their business objectives."

In June 1998, International Data Corp. (IDC), a leading IT market research firm based in Framington, Mass., released a research bulletin titled "AlphaCONNECT: Turning Infoglut into Real-Time Knowledge." According to the bulletin, written by IDC analyst Michael Sullivan-Trainor, AlphaCONNECT is a kind of information management middleware solution that "not only acts on information but is capable of anticipating the acquisition of information, selecting it, sifting it, and organizing it, and then delivering it for immediate use to the appropriate application or applications."

About AlphaServ.com

AlphaServ.com is dedicated to being the premier provider of true multi-vendor services to the IT marketplace, including on-site network support and nationwide on-call support, through over 60 locations throughout North America. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.alphamicro.com or www.alphaserv.com.

AlphaCONNECT, a division of AlphaServ.com, offers powerful foundation technologies for information management software serving the Internet, intranet, corporate information technology, and software development markets. Both AlphaServ.com and its independent vendor partners use AlphaCONNECT technologies to create award-winning business-to-business and consumer-based products. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.alphaconnect.com.

About I-Search

I-Search pioneered and is the leading provider of Internet-based search tools for candidate-sourcing and applicant-tracking services. The company maintains over 2 million Internet-accessible resumes for private database clients including AlliedSignal, Bay Networks, BellSouth, Motorola, Texaco and Xerox, and public career centers partners like the National Society of Black Engineers and jobEngine (http://www.jobEngine.com), the Ziff-Davis career site for technology professionals.

I-Search is a privately held company located in Los Angeles. Investors include CareerPath.com, SOFTBANK Ventures Inc., and Experian, formerly TRW Information Systems and Services. More information about I-Search is available at www.isearch.com.