RATP Wins 2005 Mobile Impact™ Award

Stockholm, November 15, 2005 – Appear Networks is pleased to announce that RATP (Paris Subway and Bus Authority) is the recipient of the 2005 Mobile Impact™ Award in the Mobile Management category. The Mobile Impact Awards are presented by the Mobile Enterprise Alliance (MEA), a global advocacy group promoting the business benefits of workforce mobility to enterprise end users and decision makers. The prestigious awards honor leading enterprises for successful and innovative deployments of mobile enterprise solutions that successfully balance technology investments with business objectives. The seven winners were announced via a podcast today.

Click on this link to open the podcast

Click on this link to view the case study

La Défense is the second largest transportation hub in France and among the ten largest in Europe. More than 480,000 passengers travel daily through the La Defense hub, the connection point for six types of transportation systems: RER, subway, bus, tram, taxi and the SNCF suburban train. For the RATP employees, "carrying around kilos of paper-based timetables and information" is no longer an option. Instead, they need to instantly access up-to date information in order to accurately answer questions from time-constrained passengers such as: "When the next bus is leaving?" or "Where is the nearest exit to the Les Miroirs tower?". Since 2004, over two hundred RATP employees have been equipped with Wi-Fi-enabled PDAs. Using the Cisco-based Wi-Fi network and the Appear IQ wireless communication platform, the employee is automatically recognized upon entering a hotspot and receives direct access to personalized information related to his job function, location and time of the day: context-aware services.

“RATP case study exemplifies the mission of this awards program: successful and innovative deployment of a mobile solution that balances technology investments with business objectives,” stated Daniel Taylor, managing director, MEA.

Mobile Impact Award nominations were submitted from around the world as case studies in seven categories. The entries were evaluated by an independent group of judges including leading editors and analysts Kara Gattine, associate editor of TechTarget’s SearchNetworking and SearchMobileComputing, Eugene Signorini of Yankee Group, John Stehman of Robert Frances Group, and Robert Alcock of InterComms magazine.

The winning case studies are posted on the MEA website at http://www.mobileenterprise.org/.

About Appear Networks: Appear Networks is a leading provider of wireless communication platforms that enable successful enterprise mobility solutions. The Appear IQ suite of products transforms standard wireless data networks into multimedia channels for the proactive delivery of personalized, real-time information, mission-critical video and VoIP communication to mobile workers. In highly demanding, mobile environments, Appear IQ makes technology accessible and intuitive, leveraging existing IT investments to maximize employee productivity and the effectiveness of customer interactions. Appear IQ is used by leaders in the transportation, telecommunication and public sector, including, among others, Stockholm Subway (SL), Paris Local Transport Authority (RATP), Connex, France Telecom and the City of Kista, Sweden. Appear Networks partners with IT industry leaders Cisco, Capgemini, Intel and Fujitsu Siemens Computers to deliver innovative, end-to-end, integrated WLAN solutions. The company is privately held and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.

About the Mobile Enterprise Alliance (MEA):
The Mobile Enterprise Alliance (MEA) is a global advocacy group promoting the business benefits of workforce mobility to enterprise IT managers and decision makers. The MEA provides a vendor-neutral and technology-independent clearinghouse for information about the mobile enterprise including news, case studies, research, business analysis tools, and more. This information is available - free of charge - to enterprise managers, solutions providers and industry professionals. This helps enterprise decision makers to make informed decisions about the technical architectures within the context of enterprise business objectives. As a not-for-profit organization, the MEA is funded through dues from participating vendors, service providers and systems integrators. The MEA currently represents more than 1,200 IT members in 32 countries worldwide. More information can be obtained at http://www.mobileenterprise.org/.

Press Contact
Sarah Meck, +46 8 545 91 370
mailto:sarah.meck@appearnetworks.com