SoftSmiths announces availability of its e-Business Product Suites on Linux

Houston, TX. – March 31, 2004 – SoftSmiths today announced the availability of its e-Merchant and e-Wheel application suites for Linux, and support of the open-source operating system on the Intel platform. The e-Merchant and e-Wheel suites are the industry leading integrated Energy Transaction Management Systems, and SoftSmiths is the first vendor in this market to provide all of its enterprise-class applications for Linux. SoftSmiths delivers critical e-Business solutions and services that enable energy industry participants to enhance profitability and reliability in the wholesale energy market place.

Developed collaboratively by the Internet community, Linux is an open source code version of the UNIX operating system that commands a strong share of the Internet server market and is the fastest growing UNIX platform for enterprise applications. SoftSmiths Transaction Management Systems for Linux will provide energy enterprise customers with the scalability, reliability, innovation, and open standards support of Linux.

"The popularity of Linux with both enterprise customers and the development community validates the momentum the open source code model is bringing to business critical enterprise applications," said Nathaniel Sheik, CEO of SoftSmiths. "This announcement recognizes the strategic importance of Linux in the enterprise and further extends SoftSmiths’ cross-platform strategy to include this highly stable and high performance platform."

The rich functionality of SoftSmiths e-Merchant and e-Wheel, coupled with support for Linux provides customers with a compelling lower total cost of ownership.

Commented Hugo Stappers, Director of Sales/Marketing at SoftSmiths, “We are excited to be able to offer this powerful option for SoftSmiths customers seeking a high-performance, open source infrastructure for their business critical applications”.

e-Merchant
e-Merchant Power provides Load Forecasting, Resource & Portfolio Management, Real-time and Term Trading, Multi-Commodity Deal Capture, Net Position and ”What-If” Impact Analysis, Volume and Mark-to-Market reporting, P&L reporting, Scheduling, Transmission Reservation and Electronic Tagging. In the Middle Office, e-Merchant capabilities include Operational and resource constraints, Risk Measurement, Controls and Monitoring, while the Back-office provides financial settlement, invoicing, payment tracking and reporting.

The e-Merchant Gas product suite is a collection of robust and easy-to-use interactive applications providing Front, Middle and Back-Office capabilities for Natural Gas Marketers, LDC, Utilities and Pipeline companies. e-Merchant Gas provides Deal Capture, Transportation Management, Storage Management and Risk Management. In the Middle Office, e-Merchant capabilities include Operational and resources constraints, Risk Measurement, Controls and Monitoring, Nominations and Pipeline Imbalances, while the Back-office provides Contract Management, Confirmations, Financial Settlement, Invoicing and reporting.

e-Wheel
e-Wheel is designed for Transmission Providers, Control Area Operators, and RTO's who face an increasingly diverse customer service base and require cutting-edge technology to accommodate transaction rates in the hundreds of thousands. SoftSmiths' e-Wheel Suite provides just that - a flexible, scalable business technology solution, seamlessly integrating Scheduling, Transmission Services, ATC Management, Interchange Checkout, EMS integration, Accounting and Reporting - giving Transmission Providers the capabilities necessary to stay on top of the changing business environment.

About SoftSmiths

SoftSmiths is a leading provider of proven business critical Transaction Management Systems and services for Load Serving Entities, Generation Production Entities, Purchasing Selling Entities, and Transmission Providers who operate in physical markets to sell, purchase, trade, and deliver energy in the most efficient and cost- effective way. SoftSmiths’ seamlessly integrated, scalable, and adaptable solutions provide ready-to-deploy, out-of-the-box functionality that is highly configurable and customizable to meet companies' unique needs. SoftSmiths' proven solutions and in-depth knowledge of the industry's business practices allow its customers to automate manual processes, eliminate redundancies, and increase business visibility across the enterprise to allow faster decision making and more informed decisions, thereby improving profitability, operational efficiencies and cash flow. The company has been successfully delivering e-business solutions to energy service companies since 1997.

SoftSmiths is a registered trademark of SoftSmiths, Inc.

Contact Information:

Softsmiths Inc.
Hugo Stappers
Phone:    713.626.9184
Fax:          713.626.0186
Email:      mkt@softsmiths.com
Website:  www.softsmiths.com

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