Applied Terravision Awarded $6 Million BIA Contract; New Technology to Provide Solutions for Age-Old Land Title Disputes.

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 12, 1999--

The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) has awarded Applied Terravision Systems Inc. (ATS) (ASE:TER) a $6 million second-year renewal of a five-year contract to help solve BIA's complex land title disputes.

ATS will use a high-tech solution from its Dallas-based Artesia Systems Group to remedy the BIA's age-old accounting nightmare of managing the ownership of lands held in trust for Indian tribes and Indian people.

The BIA manages more than 56 million acres of land (including 18 million acres of forest); 170,000 individual tracts of land; 100,000 active leases; 350,000 landowners and 2 million owner interests.

The BIA is counting on the Trust Asset and Accounting Management System (TAAMS) to "restore trust to the Indian trust" by positioning TAAMS as a cornerstone of the BIA's Trust Management Improvement Project. The multi-function system is being implemented in 12 BIA regional offices, 89 field offices and in over 120 tribes performing BIA functions. Interior Sec. Bruce Babbitt inaugurated the system at the BIA's Billings, Mont., field office in June.

"The Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian tribes are counting on the sophisticated technology provided by Applied Terravision to help them manage this very complex trust issue," said ATS Senior Vice President David Orr. "Our experience and the technology we have implemented for BIA will restore trust and efficiency to the management of Indian lands."

TAAMS has a trillion bytes of data storage for land title and records, and realty activity, including accounts receivables for Indian trustees. The system is run on AS/400 servers at Applied Terravision's Dallas data center and is used by more than 3,000 BIA staff. Comdisco (NYSE:CDO) provides disaster backup and there will also be ATS help-desk functions in Albuquerque and Dallas.

The new system will interface with other Interior Department systems, such as the Trust Funds Accounting System and the Royalty Management System of the Mineral Management Service. The sophisticated design, as well as data and business process modeling will allow for single input of data in a client/server environment providing access to important land and lease information.

The customized title records system includes both text and graphic options for title, forestry, tract and registry, to track all data related to a section of land, as well as determine the grantor and grantee relationship. Title defects can be located and recorded.

The system includes names of beneficiaries, changes of ownership, probate assignments and changes of title. It is able to monitor royalties and rental fees with calendar dates for accounts receivable, and issue notifications of money-owed, and create bills and statements. Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the system can fractionalize interests up to 42 decimals.

According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, trust management of Indian lands has been a problem for the past 80 years. Lands are especially difficult to manage because multiple beneficiaries may own parcels. In some cases, more than 1,100 persons share in the beneficial interests of a parcel of land. The average ownership is 35 to 40 owners.

After decades of reduced resources, lack of personnel and the absence of modern information technology, the BIA, whose workforce is 90 percent Indian, is facing legal action on behalf of Indian account-holders who are seeking an accounting of the $3 billion in Indian trust funds.

ATS was chosen to develop the software because of its expertise in delivering oil and gas, land and trust management systems to such companies as Fina Oil and Chemical, Enron Oil & Gas, Devon Energy, Pennzoil Quaker State, Southern Methodist University, Amax Foundation and the Canadian Native Band offices. The contract includes not only the development of the software, but training, maintenance and help desk services, and is renewable by Congress each year.

Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, with offices in Dallas and Houston, Applied Terravision is an established North American provider of integrated financial accounting and asset-ownership software and services to public and private sectors. The company's solution portfolio includes six suites of application software and implementation services to assist more than 400 companies effectively use information assets to increase productivity.

ATS purchased Artesia Data Systems of Dallas last year and now has combined U.S. revenues of $16 million. Two "Big Five" consulting firms recently recognized ATS as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in North America. The company landed on Arthur Andersen's FastTech 50 and Deloitte & Touche Technology Fast 55.

Additional information on ATS and its Artesia Systems Group is available at www.atsi.com. See www.taams.com for more information on the Bureau of Indian Affairs Trust Asset and Accounting Management System.