Tadpole Extends Its Utility Customer Base, Wins Field Information Contract From British Utility Bournemouth and West Hampshire Water.

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

With Tadpole's Conic GIS Software, Utility Will be Able to Improve the

Productivity of Its Field Workforces, Enhance Customer Support, and

Cut the Costs of Its Field Operations

CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 8, 2001

Tadpole-Cartesia, a leader in field information systems for the world's utilities and a business unit of mobile computing and network infrastructure vendor, Tadpole Inc., today announced that it had won a further contract for its Conic GIS software.

The contract, from British utility Bournemouth and West Hampshire Water plc, is subject to successful completion of a pilot and is valued at around $400,000. Scheduled for roll-out across the utility in Q1, 2002, Tadpole's system will support the utility's drive to increase the number of tasks undertaken daily by its mobile workforces, enhance customer response and service, and reduce operational costs.

Tadpole's Conic GIS software is a well-proven, robust field information solution for mobile workers in the energy industries and is widely-deployed by utilities across Europe, North America and Asia. It enables mobile workers to receive job-related corporate-stored GIS data on handheld devices in the field such as the location of assets in order to undertake inspection, repair and maintenance tasks. Once a task is completed, job data is transmitted back to corporate databases from the field.

"Conic software is a best-of-breed solution for improved collaborative workflow between mobile workforces and a utility's operational hub," said Rita Carter, project manager at Bournemouth and West Hampshire Water. "It's a unique solution for asset inspectors and repair and maintenance teams to work faster, smarter and more effectively, and a business driver for Bournemouth and West Hampshire Water to meet its strategic goals."

Mark Ketteman, general manager of Tadpole-Cartesia, added: "This Bournemouth and West Hampshire Water contract again underlines the leading value-add position of Conic GIS within the utility industries. Today, Conic GIS is fundamental to productivity gains in their mobile workforces and generates deep savings in operational costs."

About Bournemouth & West Hampshire Water

Bournemouth & West Hampshire Water Plc (www.bwhwater.co.uk) is a statutory public water supplier serving nearly 200,000 businesses and homes on the south coast of England. It supplies about 156 Megalitres of water a day on average through 2750Km of distribution mains but this increases to a peak of over 240 Megalitres a day in the summer. The company's history dates back over 135 years. The original companies were not privatized in 1989 having always been independent but converted to public limited company status in September 1992 and merged to form the present company in 1994.

In April 2000, it became the principle component of a 50:50 joint venture partnership between British multi-national water engineering group, Biwater, and the Dutch multi-utility company, Nuon. The joint venture has water and waste water operations in the U.K., Mexico, Chile, Indonesia, South Africa and the Philippines and aims to exploit the $200 billion per year global market for private sector involvement in water operations.

The utility's water charges per average household (at 27p per day) are 7.0 percent below the average for England and Wales (at 29p per day). It has the second lowest costs per cubic meter of water produced in the water industry. Bournemouth and West Hampshire and its predecessors have never imposed restrictions on the use of water for any purpose in its history despite having the highest proportional growth in summer demand of any U.K. water company. It has one of the highest levels of compliance with drinking water standards in England and Wales at 99.9 percent in 2000.

Bournemouth and West Hampshire is investing nearly 50 million pounds in improvements to its assets between 2000 and 2005; 72 million pounds has been spent from 1990-1999. It has a low level of total leakage at about 14 percent, which is close to the economic break-even level and one of the lowest in the U.K. Total leakage includes water lost from customers' own pipework which represents one third of all losses. The Chartermark for excellence in public service was awarded to the utility in 2000. Only eight of the 26 water companies have earned this distinction.

About Tadpole-Cartesia

Tadpole-Cartesia, a software business unit of Tadpole Technology plc (www.tadpole.com), is a leader in enterprise-class mobile information systems for the world's utilities, telecommunications and public service industries. Its unique range of mobile business solutions known under the Conic brand support both Windows and Java platforms and open new vistas for better management and productivity of field workers, improve customer service, reduce operational costs, and enable user industries to fully capitalize their investments in corporate GIS and CAD data. Further information on Tadpole's businesses on 760/929-0992 (U.S.), [phone] (U.K.), or by email [e-mail].

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