Dutch Rail Mobile Deployment Receives Two Awards for Excellence at “European IT Excellence Awards” Ceremony 2008

Frankfurt, Germany and Utrecht, Holland – 20 February 2008 – Appear, the leading provider of context-aware software infrastructure, today announced that the Appear IQ mobile platform deployed by Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NSR, the National Dutch Rail Authority) received awards for “Best Mobility Solution” and “Best Overall IT Solution” at the European IT Excellence Awards held in Frankfurt, Germany on 4 February 2008 . The awards were handed to Xavier Aubry, Chief Executive Officer, Appear, by Robert Morris, Head of Microsoft Licensing, and John Chapman, Editorial Director of IT Europa.

The European IT Excellence Awards recognize best practices in IT solutions, enabling organizations to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. The “Best Mobile Solution” category awards mobility solutions that have made a significant positive impact on the way large organizations now operate, improving business operations, productivity and profitability.

“We are honoured to receive these two industry commendations on behalf of Dutch Rail”, commented Xavier Aubry, Chief Executive Officer, Appear. “The NSR Production Service Team has done a superb job with the deployment of their mobile solution. We are delighted to provide the enabling software technology underpinning such tremendous productivity gains and improved quality of service to travelers.”

Appear and NSR have deployed wireless context-aware services, based on Appear IQ platform, to the entire NSR mobile workforce. This is the largest known deployment of Wi-Fi enabled frontline applications in Europe to date.

NSR has wired 50 stations throughout the Netherlands with Cisco Systems Wi-Fi networks, and equipped its 10,000 frontline employees with Windows Mobile powered handheld devices for instant access to these networks. While working on the platform, train conductors and drivers, customer service representatives and other staff can wirelessly access business-critical data such as traffic information, schedules, shift rosters, maintenance information and temporary speed limits.

Over the past 3 years, the Appear IQ platform has generated an efficiency gain of 25 minutes per employee, per shift, saving an estimated 24M Euros to the organization (Source: IDC).

“We selected Appear IQ to deploy a fully wireless-enabled solution in 2005” says Anne-Margreet van der Horst, NSR, Manager Information Systems. “However, the deployment does not stop there, as we are considering migrating to the latest generation 6 of Appear IQ software, adding multi-level administration support and context-aware notification capabilities.”

“It is not very often that a large scale IT project such as Railpocket is deployed on time and on specifications” says Bettina Haarbosch, NSR, Manager Communication Solutions. “Thanks to the dedication of the NSR Team and the flexibility and reactivity of Appear, the entire wireless deployment was completed in 5 months across the Netherlands, and well within budget.”

“Appear’s entry for the wireless productivity solution for their client Nederlandse Spoorwegen, showed that they had really understood what the client was trying to achieve and had delivered a powerful solution that exceeded the basic requirements” says John Chapman, Editorial Director of IT Europa. “The entry was also well written highlighting the needs, the proposition, the practical issues in deployment and most importantly the results for the client. This solution received the highest marks by the independent judges across all categories in the European IT Excellence Awards.”

About Appear: Appear is the leading provider of context-aware software infrastructure designed to power the next generation of mobile applications and services. Using situational information (context), the AppearIQ suite of products transforms ordinary wireless data networks into rich multimedia channels that deliver information, voice, video and messages to mobile computer users. By collecting and sharing context, Appear’s solutions eliminate information overload and ensure users have exactly the information they need, when and where they need it. Industry leaders in transportation, retail, telecommunications and government use AppearIQ. Appear has an extensive partner network including industry leaders Cisco, SITA and Telent in order to deliver innovative, end-to-end wireless and mobile solutions. The company is privately held and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden and with offices across Europe. For further information please visit www.appearnetworks.com

Press Contact: Mia Falgard, +46 8 545 91 370, mia.falgard@appearnetworks.com 

Bob Morris of Microsoft presents The Mobility award to Appear CEO Xavier Aubry	Alan Norman MD of IT Europa presents The Excellence award to Appear CEO Xavier Aubry

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