Two Energy Brokerage Firms Select Advanced Reality Collaboration Solution to Boost Trading Profits.

HOUSTON -- Adapter for Microsoft Excel Enables Energy Traders to Instantly Share and Capitalize on Rapidly Changing Commodity Prices

Advanced Reality(TM), Inc., the company that makes applications collaborative, today announced that two leading energy brokerage firms, TCT Oil Brokers and Mport Energy, have purchased its Microsoft Excel-based collaboration product to make faster and more profitable trades. The Presence-AR adapter for Microsoft Excel enables multiple traders to enter and simultaneously view real-time bid/ask prices for energy commodities from within a standard Excel spread sheet regardless of their geographic location.

"By providing access to real-time market information the Presence-AR Adapter for Microsoft Excel has streamlined our entire front to back office brokerage process," said Jon Morace, an energy broker with TCT Oil Brokers. "The Advanced Reality product gives our brokers a distinct competitive advantage, and has enabled us to significantly increase revenue and reduce operating costs."

The Presence-AR Adapter allows energy traders at TCT Oil Brokers and Mport Energy to launch a secure peer-to-peer collaboration session from within a standard copy of Microsoft Excel so they can view and modify market data in real-time with an unlimited number of colleagues. Unlike traditional collaboration systems that require users to learn a new interface and work in a separate collaborative workspace, the Presence-AR Adapter for Excel delivers immediate results by using the existing Excel application with its familiar look and feel.

"The ability to automate the manual process of tracking commodity prices using Microsoft Excel, which is both familiar to users and an existing part of the IT infrastructure, is a boon for energy brokerage firms like TCT Oil Brokers and Mport Energy," said Brian Hoogendam, president of Advanced Reality. "The Presence-AR Adapter for Excel enables brokers to make more profitable trades by sharing and instantly accessing real-time data from within a commonly used application."

Same Excel Features only Better

The Presence-AR Adapter enables multiple users to participate in a real-time collaboration session from within their local copy of Excel. During the collaboration, all participants have the ability to simultaneously enter data and formulas; edit data and formulas; cut, copy, and paste cells; as well as drag and drop cells. In addition, a history of document changes made during a collaboration session is recorded in each cell's comments field, while a history of document changes is recorded in a SQL Server database.

Installation and Training in Less than One Hour

The Presence-AR Adapter for Excel can be easily deployed by IT staff without any end-user intervention. Once installed, the Presence-AR Adapter for Excel adds "Begin Collaboration" and "End Collaboration" buttons to the Microsoft Excel toolbar and enables end-users to create, join, leave, and end a collaboration session. During collaboration, the peer-to-peer based Presence-AR Adapter for Excel allows a session to persist, or fail-over, even when the host signs-off or is inadvertently disconnected. It also provides load balancing and supports client/server configurations so that a collaboration session can be hosted by a server to allow participants to join and leave at their convenience.

For an independent assessment of the Presence-AR Adapter for Excel see the Shared Spaces Research and Consulting report at: http://www.shared-spaces.com/blog/2005/02/advanced_realit.html

Company Background

Advanced Reality, Inc. develops software that makes existing and new applications collaborative without the need for complex programming or expensive infrastructure. The company's flagship technology, Presence-AR, enables real-time collaboration across any computing platform, operating system, application, and access device. Advanced Reality is a Microsoft Certified Partner and offers productivity tools for making Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and Internet Explorer, as well as Mozilla Firefox, collaborative. The company also provides professional services for adding collaboration capabilities to existing software applications. Advanced Reality is privately held and headquartered in Houston, Texas. To contact Advanced Reality call 713.533.5839, visit us on the Web at http://www.advancedreality.com/, or write to [e-mail].