CEO Update-NetDriven Solutions Refined Focus Will Accelerate Growth.

Business Editors

CALGARY, Alberta--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 29, 2001

Focus On Storage Application Solutions Within Select Vertical

Markets Will Drive and Multiply Data Storage Revenue

Oz Pedde, interim President and CEO, NetDriven Solutions Inc. (TSE: NDS.) www.netdrivensolutions.com, is pleased to provide an update to the shareholders of NetDriven Solutions on the strategic growth plans of NDS: "Our recent focus has been on the refining of the growth strategy for NetDriven Solutions to maximize our revenues in the storage industry. We have also focused on building a first class team to execute on our strategy. We have finalized our strategy; we have selected our markets, and have an experienced, and growing senior management team. NetDriven is positioned to become a global player in the data storage application solutions market."

NetDriven's growth strategy is to be a leader in the data storage application solutions market. Software applications for businesses are one of the driving forces behind the increased demand for data storage. Corporations have a demand for applications, which offer value-added business solutions without the related requirement to purchase, maintain and operate the storage infrastructure needed to store and manage their data. NetDriven Solutions offers the application, the storage, and ease of access in one clean, efficient, and fully managed packaged solution. Corporations will pay a monthly fee for this value-added solution based upon the amount of storage actually utilized. By controlling the application, NDS has created a significant barrier to entry for competitors and ensured long-term sustainable recurring revenue. The amount of revenue per megabyte of storage, derived by NetDriven using this strategy is many multiples higher than companies offering only managed storage services.

NetDriven Solutions is applying this refined strategy initially to three main industry verticals: Oil & Gas, Publishing and Financial Services. With the tremendous knowledge base built over years of experience with large scale storage customers, and the new software development expertise derived form the recent acquisition of ReadAttachments, NDS is clearly capable of delivering in these markets. The Company has moved forward from a development mode to a sales and marketing focus with the responsibility for profitability remaining within each of the three business units. The Oil and Gas business unit will remain in Calgary, the executive offices and Financial Services business unit will be located in Toronto, and the Publishing business unit will be located in New York City. The business model for each business unit is to deploy the data storage application solutions and generate revenue through a storage-usage model. This recurring revenue model combined with the dramatic growth in storage demand, driven by focussed applications, will provide revenue and earnings predictability moving forward.

Oil & Gas

NetDriven Solutions has provided high quality fully managed seismic data storage applications solutions to the Oil & Gas industry since 1992. The Company has developed intellectual property and proprietary processes enabling the digitization, archiving, storing and on-line delivery of critical seismic data for our long-term clients including Anderson Exploration (now Devon Energy), Talisman Exploration, and MobilExxon. NetDriven currently derives over $1,000,000 per year in revenue from its seismic operations. Establishing a business unit focused on the Oil & Gas sector provides for aggressive marketing of existing applications and the development or acquisition of additional storage applications with an Oil & Gas emphasis. The Oil & Gas industry also has a geographically dispersed work force making this market a beneficiary of the distributed work force storage applications developed for the Financial Services business unit.

Publishing

The Publishing business unit has been established to take advantage of the data storage applications needs of thousands of daily newspapers, magazine titles and paper-intensive businesses worldwide. The content rich nature of these businesses, coupled with trends driving the digitization of vast amounts of aging archives of historically important documents and periodicals, represents potentially hundreds of terabytes of long term storage demand, in the markets NetDriven is immediately focussing on. Today, NetDriven is working closely with a strategic customer on an advanced storage application for a large newspaper archive. This customer has the capacity to convert up to 50,000 pages per day, of historical publications, to digital format and is archiving the data and making it available for convenient on-line delivery. NetDriven's Publishing business unit is focused on converting this pilot project to a long term revenue contract, signing additional clients in the sector, and on developing or acquiring additional storage applications to support evolving market requirements.

Financial Services

The Financial Services business unit is piloting a storage application focusing on automating redundant document backups and is developing a collaborative storage solution that can provide secured access to some 400,000 financial service employees across Canada. It is estimated that over 400 terabytes of critical documents and data reside on laptops and workstations in the financial services sector, and this data is unsecured, not backed up and not available for sharing among co-workers. The workforce redundancy and collaboration application provides transparent management of all critical documents and digital intellectual property and further provides individual or enterprise access using any workstation or laptop with Internet access or via any wireless device. Secured access, anytime, anywhere anyhow is a requirement with a de-centralized workforce, a growing trend in today's businesses. The applications are designed to provide a complete business solution for financial service client's internal work force and are readily convertible to be offered by our clients on a "white label" basis to their own customer base, through a revenue sharing model. Currently the wireless document management system, which is a core application delivery component, is being utilized on a pilot basis by large financial institutions. Expansion in this vertical market will be through co-development projects with selected financial institutions and through acquisition of additional external companies and applications for which there is a demonstrated demand.

Mr. Pedde added, "Our strategy for growth at NetDriven Solutions is focused and clear. Our product and service offerings are innovative, timely, and are designed to maximize the revenue from each megabyte of storage. We continue to add experienced members to our team to allow us to achieve our stated goal of remaining a leader in the data storage applications solutions market."

Forward-Looking Statements 

Certain statements in this news release are not historical and may constitute forward-looking statements reflecting NetDriven Solutions Inc.'s current expectations in the data storage applications business. Investors are cautioned that all forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, changes in market and competition, technological and competitive developments, cooperation and performance of strategic partners, and potential downturns in economic conditions generally. Forward-looking statements are based upon management's estimates, beliefs, and opinions on the date the statements are made. NetDriven Solutions Inc. assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances of management's estimates, beliefs, or opinions should change. Additional information on these and other potential factors that could affect the Company's financial results are detailed in documents filed from time to time with the Ontario Securities Commission.