Maps On Us Offers First Internet Wedding Retail Locator for Customer Dessy Creations; Maps On Us Participates in First Internet Wedding Conference, WedCon '97, in New York City on Sunday, April 6

Business Wire, April 6, 1997

MURRAY HILL, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 6, 1997--Searching for the bridal "dream dress" has just taken a cyberspace turn. Maps On Us (www.MapsOnUs.com), the integrated Web-based mapping, routing, and yellow pages service from Lucent Technologies, has created the first Internet wedding retail locator, the StoreFinder, for New York-based Dessy Creations, a bridal gown designer.

The Maps On Us StoreFinder function will allow bridal shoppers to draw interactive maps for any of Dessy Creations' 3800 retail locations throughout the United States. Maps On Us will integrate a customized search engine on Dessy Creations' InWedding site (www.inwedding.com), a wedding retail resource, that will provide the nearest Dessy Creations gown or Oscar de la Renta and Rafinatti tuxedo retailer within 100 miles of a person's zip code, city, or state.

The Maps On Us yellow pages function will allow brides-to-be in locating florists, caterers, and wedding reception locations, in order to complete their bridal planning.

"As a bridesmaid's manufacturer, we rely on serving our Internet customers quickly and with the greatest ease-uf-use. With the help of Maps On Us, the Internet speeds time-to-order and gives our customers a more satisfactory shopping experience," said Alan Dessy, President of Dessy Creations. "The Storefinder helps our customers find retailers in their area that can outfit them, from top to bottom, with everything they need for a successful wedding. The interface that Maps On Us provides for InWedding allows us to do this in a seamless fashion."

Storefinder will make its debut in the first Internet wedding conference, WedCon '97 (www.wedconny.com), co-produced by Dessy Creations (www.dessy.com) and Bridal.Net (www.bridalnet.com), on Sunday, April 6, at 780 Third Avenue, Concrouse Level 2, in New York City. The event coincides with the kick-off of the annual Bridal Market week in New York City, and is open from 9:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m.

"As the Internet becomes a location-specific resource for retail customers, greater demands will be placed on the ability to serve highly detailed, accurate, and interactive information quickly and in a graphically engaging manner," said Narain Gehani, president of Maps On Us. "The StoreFinder application that we have developed for Dessy Creations is indicative of the kind of customized site features that we are integrating with customer Web sites."

For more information on Dessy Creations, contact Eve McGrath at Images & Details, Inc., at 203-966-8203.

Lucent Technologies designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, consumer and business telephone systems and microelectronics components.

CONTACT: Lucent Technologies - Bell Laboratories

Chris Pfaff, 908/582-7571 (t)

908-582-4552 (f)

cpfaff@lucent.com

or

Images and Details, Inc.

Eve McGrath, 203/966-8203 (t)

203-966-9383 (f)

76141.2421@compuserve.com