Danish Electric Utility NESA Selects MDSI Advantex Software; MDSI Signs Another International Deal With Help From SAP.

Business Editors

RICHMOND, B.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 26, 2000

MDSI Mobile Data Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ:MDSI)(TSE:MMD.) has signed a contract with Copenhagen-based NESA A/S, one of Denmark's largest and most progressive electric utilities, for its Advantex(TM) wireless workforce management software. The contract is the third that MDSI has signed with international customers in recent weeks.

Rob Cruickshank, President and Chief Operating Officer for MDSI(R), commented, "Our investment in the international marketplace is gaining traction. Over the last eighteen months or so, we have announced deals worth over US$35 million in total with customers outside of North America. Approximately a third of that amount comes from deals announced in the last few weeks. As deregulation continues to sweep across Europe in both the utility and telecommunications sectors, leaders like NESA who are taking the opportunity to distinguish themselves through better customer service will ultimately be the winners."

The clear leader in wireless workforce management in North America, MDSI has already achieved significant success in telecommunications and utility markets internationally, where such solutions are much newer to the markets. MDSI has won high profile international customers such as Australia's Cable & Wireless Optus, Holland's Nuon (both recently announced), Belgacom, British Gas Services, Meralco, Tele Danmark, Telenor, and Yorkshire Water. As in North America, the market abroad is being driven largely by rapid deregulation and resulting competition, which allows consumers to choose freely between suppliers based on who delivers superior service. That's where MDSI's Advantex software suite can help; deployed as a wireless application, Advantex manages mobile workers to ensure the right person arrives at the right time, with the right skill and equipment to get the job done right-the first time.

Lars Lorensen, Technical Director, NESA, stated, "Advantex is a perfect fit with NESA's strategy to capitalize on the growing opportunity created by deregulation. Its fundamental workforce management capabilities and ability to interface to our SAP(TM) solution will help us to offer customers better service at more competitive prices. It's also robust enough to support current efforts to significantly increase our number of electricity customers, and it's highly scalable in the event we considerably expand our customer base by way of an acquisition or merger. The fact that Advantex operates in Danish and that we have support for the system through MDSI's Amsterdam's office were other important factors in our decision-making process."

Added Cruickshank, "This is a partnership success story as well. SAP, who has tremendous market share for its applications with European utility companies, introduced us to NESA just as they did with Yorkshire Water last year. On the enterprise side of our business, we work with some very large companies such as SAP and Lucent to jointly identify prospects and sell our solutions. This contract represents fruit from those efforts."

Initially, Advantex will interface to NESA's legacy customer information system to automatically dispatch routine maintenance and emergency work over the GSM wireless network to approximately 100 mobile workers in Copenhagen and the greater surrounding area. When NESA implements SAP R/3 modules including Utilities Plant Management and Service Management for maintenance and material planning early next year, Advantex will interface with the solution to dispatch complex, equipment-intensive, asset management work, and value-added customer service work to a mobile workforce that NESA anticipates will have grown to reach 300.

The interface between MDSI's and SAP's products has already been established thanks to development efforts announced in August of last year. MDSI has applied to SAP for certification of this interface within the SAP Software Partner Program.

MDSI's Transaction Broker module handles the seamless exchange of information between Advantex and SAP solutions. Transaction Broker uses Mercator(R) Enterprise Broker e-business integration software, a leading SAP-certified tool for SAP interface development.

MDSI's Advantex solution provides utility and telecommunications companies with a seamless and reliable means to wirelessly manage and communicate data to mobile workers and link them to a full array of enterprise and Internet data resources. The Advantex software suite increases operational efficiency and supports customer-oriented service practices that win more customers and keep them longer. Advantex lets organizations provide faster and better field service to their customers, with increased efficiency and lower cost. Advantex schedules appointments by matching customer requests with the best available mobile resource. It efficiently and automatically dispatches workers to ensure the fastest possible response time, tracks and records worker time and resources used on a job, and automatically transfers all information collected in the field to the appropriate enterprise or Internet data resources. It eliminates inefficiency and wasted time involved in creating and transferring paper or voice orders to mobile workers and order completion information back to the enterprise. Advantex also reports on operational performance to help management make decisions. And it all happens wirelessly, in real-time.

About NESA

Headquartered in Copenhagen, NESA's service territory includes northern Zealand, the municipalities in the Roskilde area and most of the municipalities of Greater Copenhagen. This is an area with a population of around 1 million with thousands of commercial enterprises. NESA supplies a total of around 530,000 connections, of which around 467,000 are residential units and the rest are business enterprises. As of January 1, 2000 NESA consists of: NESA A/S, NESANET A/S, NESA Forsyning A/S, NESATEAM A/S, and NESA Kabel-tv A/S. NESA also owns 50% of the teletransmission company Powercom A/S and 36% of Energi E2, Denmark's largest generating company. For more information see http://www.nesa.dk (short presentations on the NESA site are in English).

About MDSI

By uniting the power of wireless communications and the Internet, MDSI Mobile Data Solutions Inc. is revolutionizing how companies sell and deliver services and how people purchase them. We enable companies of any size in any service market to manage mobile workers to offer better customer service, faster and at lower cost, and empower those workers via a reliable, wireless link to enterprise or Internet applications. We enable people to purchase, schedule, confirm and track service appointments online without any human intervention, providing the ultimate in convenience. MDSI accomplishes this through a suite of wireless connectivity, workforce management and other mobile solutions that can be delivered over the Internet or through traditional on-site implementations. Founded in 1993 with roots back to the 1970's, MDSI is the most experienced and trusted wireless applications company operating today. MDSI has approximately 100 major, blue chip customers worldwide, operations in the U.S., Canada, and Amsterdam, and multiple support offices around the world. More information is available at http://www.mdsi-advantex.com.

This press release contains statements that constitute "forward looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or developments in our industry, to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from anticipated results include risks and uncertainties detailed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. MDSI disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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