Derrick Plank Joins Vision Solutions as Director -- African Region.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 30, 2002

Vision Solutions announced the appointment of Derrick Plank as director -- African region. Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Plank is charged with the task of extending Vision Solutions' offerings into Africa. Having worked with some of the largest banking and insurance companies in Southern Africa, Plank brings to Vision Solutions a wealth of experience and knowledge of the African markets.

Plank has been in the IT industry for more than 20 years. He spent 12 years with IBM in South Africa, primarily in account management roles servicing the financial services sector. He has a very good understanding of that industry and the challenges of implementing and managing very large and complex IT infrastructures. Plank joins Vision Solutions from Symantec in Johannesburg, where he held the position of corporate account manager. His experience covers a number of disciplines in the IT world including marketing representative, marketing director and general manager.

"The African market is presenting a number of opportunities in a largely unexploited market. We have a number of high-profile clients in the region, particularly major national and multinational corporations who use our software," said Plank.

Plank is looking forward to serving the company, not only because it has an established reputation and leadership position, but also because of its new multi-platform managed availability offerings, which enable companies to manage information across a range of applications, databases, operating systems and servers.

"Vision Solutions is a leading global supplier of managed availability solutions. I believe that their expertise in this area is a solid foundation from which to bring their innovative, cross-platform solutions to the market," said Plank. "The company also has a strong and experienced management team, and a clear vision of where they can take the company in the future."

"My broad experience will allow me to understand and address the needs of both business partners and customers in the African region," said Plank. "I want to increase the solutions capabilities of the Vision Solutions Partners in the region through our new Partner Program."

"Derrick has a long and successful track record and we welcome him to the Vision Solutions team. I believe that Derrick will be a key element in further developing our leadership position in the African market," said Frank Harrison, vice president, sales -- EMEA.

About Vision Solutions

Vision Solutions has headquarters in Irvine, and provides solutions for assuring the availability of a company's mission-critical applications and data. With more than 1,800 customers and 4,300 installations in more than 70 countries, the company is a leading managed availability vendor for the IBM eServer iSeries (AS/400) with solutions for virtually every industry. Vision Suite(TM) is a widely deployed and recommended software solution for managed availability for the iSeries. Symbiator(R) integrates an enterprise by providing real-time information how you want it, where you want it, when you want it. The company provides extensive professional services, worldwide support and education to a global market. Vision Solutions is an IBM Premier Business Partner and an IBM Premier High Availability Business Partner. The company maintains strategic alliances with industry-leading application and database companies including J.D. Edwards, Misys, IBS, Intentia, Microsoft and Oracle. Vision Solutions is a member of the publicly traded IDION group of companies (JSE:IDI). For more information on Vision Solutions, visit the company's Web site at www.visionsolutions.com.