Interpath Named Finalist in ASP Industry Consortium 'ASPire Awards'.

Business Editors, High Tech Writers

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 25, 2001

Program Recognizes Best Practices

in Application Service Provider Field

Interpath Communications, Inc. has been selected as a finalist in the 2001 ASP Industry Consortium "ASPire Awards" program, which highlights best practices in the application service provider (ASP) industry.

Winners, to be chosen in five categories, will be named in October.

The five categories that comprise the 2001 ASPire Awards are: Delivery and Enablement; Innovative Technology - Wireless; Integration; Management and Operations; and Service Satisfaction. Interpath was selected as one of three finalists in the Service Satisfaction category. Winners will be selected from among these finalists by an Independent Review Board of respected ASP industry experts from outside the Consortium.

"The entrants in this year's ASPire Awards have all illustrated the outstanding value proposition presented by the ASP computing model," noted Gopan Madathil, director of product management for Agilent Technologies, who chairs the ASPire Awards Committee. "In being named an ASPire Awards finalist, Interpath has already distinguished itself as among the very best in the ASP industry."

"We are thrilled to have been selected as a finalist in what we at Interpath consider to be the most important of all of the ASPire Awards," said Joel Schleicher, Chairman and CEO of Interpath. "This nomination serves as industry recognition of the tremendous effort everyone at Interpath puts forth to provide our customers with the highest level of outsourced application development, integration and hosting solutions."

About Interpath

Interpath is an established, full-service Application Service Provider/Application Infrastructure Service Provider. Through a combination of skills, support, security, and stability, Interpath enables customers to be secure in the knowledge they can focus on their core competencies.

Interpath partners with customers to offer application development, integration and hosting solutions and services. Interpath's applications expertise, combined with its state-of-the-art data and operations centers, offers customers a single, high-quality source for application development, management and hosting. The company is based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina and recently launched Interpath Australia Ltd. in August 2000, after the acquisition of Alta, one of Australia's leading ASPs.

In June 2000, Interpath announced that Bain Capital, a global private equity firm that manages several pools of capital including private equity, high-yield assets, mezzanine capital and public equity with over $12 billion in assets under management, gained majority ownership of the corporation with Progress Energy, Inc. maintaining a minority ownership. For more information about Interpath, visit the company's Web site at: http://www.interpath.net.

About the ASP Industry

An application service provider manages and delivers application capabilities to multiple entities from data centers across a wide area network. ASPs give customers a viable alternative to procuring and implementing complex systems themselves. ASP customers also are able to control more precisely the total cost of technology ownership through scheduled payment schemes. Though the ASP market is relatively new, computer industry analysts foresee rapid growth and multi-billion-dollar annual sales within the next few years. End users cross industry lines and include anyone from the small office/home office (SOHO) client to large corporations and from complex businesses to specific verticals.

About the ASP Industry Consortium

The ASP Industry Consortium is the global advocacy group formed to promote the application service provider industry. Its goals include educating the marketplace, promoting best practices, developing common definitions for the industry, as well as serving as a forum for discussion and sponsoring research. Among the technology sectors represented among its membership are Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), Network Service Providers (NSPs), telecommunications companies, infrastructure providers, Application Service Providers (ASPs) and other sectors supporting the industry.

Since its founding by 25 leading technology companies in May 1999, more than 600 member companies in 33 countries have joined the ASP Industry Consortium. Information on the ASP Industry Consortium - including a full list of member companies - is available at www.allaboutasp.org or by contacting the Consortium's headquarters at: ASP Industry Consortium, Inc., 401 Edgewater Place, Suite 500, Wakefield, Mass., USA 01880; Tel: [phone]; Fax: [phone]; e-mail [e-mail].