MessageOne Expands Business Continuity Offerings with Acquisition of Evergreen Assurance Technology; Venrock Associates Makes Investment in MessageOne.

AUSTIN, Texas -- MessageOne (www.messageone.com), the leading provider of affordable business continuity and disaster recovery solutions, today expanded its growing business by announcing the acquisition of specific assets and technologies of Baltimore-based Evergreen Assurance, a provider of high availability failover solutions for Microsoft Windows applications. MessageOne will acquire key assets of Evergreen, including all of the company's technology and software code, for a combination of cash and stock.

In conjunction with the acquisition, Evergreen Assurance's largest investor, Venrock Associates, has made an undisclosed cash investment in MessageOne, affirming its confidence in MessageOne's business, growth opportunities and strategic direction.

"MessageOne's success in the business continuity market has enabled us to expand our product line and acquire complementary solutions that our customers have requested," said Satin H. Mirchandani, CEO of MessageOne. "Evergreen's technology is complementary with MessageOne's suite of products. Our market penetration, strategic industry partnerships, and financial stability will provide a strong platform to deliver Evergreen technology to a broader base of customers."

With this acquisition, MessageOne plans to offer a range of business continuity solutions to customers, depending on their needs and budgets, from the breakthrough-priced MessageOne EMS email continuity service to Evergreen's high availability service for Exchange and other Microsoft Windows applications. MessageOne will integrate Evergreen's technology to expand its product portfolio across a wide range of Microsoft Windows applications, such as SQL Server, Active Directory, Research In Motion's BlackBerry Enterprise Server and Good Technologies' GoodLink Server. The acquisition includes all of Evergreen's intellectual property - including Evergreen's portfolio of services that provide customers with automated, application-level failover, failback and real-time data replication.

Meta Group research shows that a shockingly low 20 percent of Global 2000 (G2000) organizations have a comprehensive and viable availability and recovery strategy. Translated to opportunity, 80 percent of G2000 organizations lack an updated and tested recovery strategy and plan based on core business needs, according to Al Passori, Group Senior Vice President, Meta Group.

"Basic business functions have become highly dependent on underlying computing processes that demand more continuous availability for employees, customers, and suppliers," said Passori. "MessageOne's acquisition of Evergreen Assurance further demonstrates their commitment to the industry and positions them for strong growth by taking advantage of the market's needs through it's Evergreen Assurance acquisition, industry alliances and partnerships."

The Evergreen Assurance engineering and development team joins the fast-growing MessageOne team and is relocating to Austin, Texas. Additionally, MessageOne will invest in updating Evergreen's support operations, and plans to grow the existing sales/marketing presence in the mid-Atlantic region.

"We have a strong technology portfolio at Evergreen and by teaming up with market-leader MessageOne, we will have access to its fast-growing customer base," said Kelly Jones, PhD, co-founder and Senior Vice President of Engineering and Development, Evergreen Assurance. "MessageOne is a great fit for our team and we are looking forward to jointly developing best-of-class business continuity solutions for the marketplace."

New MessageOne Investors: Venrock Associates and Blue Chip Venture Company

"We have long recognized the critical role that business continuity and disaster recovery solutions play in global enterprises," said Mike Brooks, General Partner at Venrock Associates. "Our investment today is further recognition of the importance of that growing market and of our confidence in MessageOne's business. Its financial strength - as evidenced by its oversubscribed round of a few months ago - combined with its effective sales and marketing engine, are an excellent launching pad for the Evergreen technology."

According to Jack Wyant, Managing Director at Blue Chip Venture Company, "Evergreen's high end availability solutions are a natural complement to MessageOne's affordable solutions. We welcome the opportunity to become an investor in MessageOne in order to support its expansion efforts."

Venrock Associates and Blue Chip Venture Company join MessageOne's existing syndicate of investors: QuestMark Partners; RRE Ventures; Impact Venture Partners and StarVest Partners. To date, MessageOne has raised nearly $30 million in equity financing, including a recent $11 million round in May, 2004.

About MessageOne

MessageOne (www.messageone.com), headquartered in Austin, Texas, is the leading provider of affordable business continuity, disaster recovery and crisis communications solutions for enterprise customers. MessageOne's Emergency Messaging Service (EMS) is a highly scalable, extremely affordable standby email solution built on Linux. MessageOne's AlertFind is the leading enterprise emergency notification and escalation platform. Founded by Adam Dell, MessageOne customers include Motorola, CIT, CC West and Young Broadcasting.