Avanade Canada Selects Montreal as Its First Canadian-Based Nearshore Facility.

Newest office in company's Americas Delivery Network to provide IT solutions and applications management outsourcing to customers across North America and Europe

MONTREAL -- Avanade Canada, a subsidiary of Avanade Inc., the global IT consultancy dedicated to delivering solutions based on the Microsoft platform, today opened the first Canadian office of the Avanade Americas Delivery Network (ADN). The new Montreal node within the ADN will provide customers in Canada, the United States and Europe with access to bilingual, nearshore managed IT solutions development and applications management outsourcing services. The Montreal node offers exceptional cost, flexibility, and services to Avanade customers around the world in partnership with Avanade's five Canadian offices, other North American nearshore facilities and offshore facilities in the Pacific.

"Avanade is thrilled to tap into Montreal's flourishing IT and solutions consulting community by developing a world class delivery centre," said Rick Birkenstock, General Manager, Avanade Canada. "Our customers in Canada and around the world are seeking consulting services in both English and French, and the new centre will give them the flexibility to obtain high-quality solutions based on any combination of Avanade's front office consulting, nearshore and offshore teams."

The Montreal centre will focus on four key service delivery capabilities in the growing nearshoring sector: custom application development, enterprise integration, application management and enterprise collaboration. It will offer multi-site delivery, round-the-clock support, competitive pricing, repeatable processes and high-quality work to leverage IT assets. Located in downtown Montreal, the team plans to expand to 20 by January 2007 and to 50 by October 2007.

"In the rapidly-evolving application management outsourcing industry, nearshore facilities continue to be a cost-effective way to deliver services," said Jason Bremner, Director, Outsourcing Services, IDC Canada. "We anticipate seeing further growth among international customers for Canadian nearshore services over the course of 2007."

The Montreal location joins Avanade Canada's network of consulting locations in Mississauga, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Since first launching in Canada in 2002, the company has grown to more than 200 people and has experienced 100 per cent growth every year since 2003. Avanade Canada has worked with more than 110 companies and organizations from a variety of industries including financial services, natural resources, health and life sciences, government, communications and hi-tech.

About Avanade Canada

Avanade is the only global IT solutions consultancy dedicated to using the Microsoft platform to help enterprises achieve profitable growth. Through proven solutions that extend Microsoft technologies, Avanade helps enterprises increase revenue, reduce costs and reinvest in innovation to gain competitive advantage. Avanade Canada is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Avanade Inc., based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Additional information can be found at www.avanade.ca.

Avanade and the Avanade logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Avanade Inc. Other product, service, or company names mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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