Smallworld Announces Significant Wins in Utilities, Telecommunications Markets

Business Wire, April 23, 1999

U.S. Division Posts Strongest Second Quarter Ever

CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 22, 1999--

Smallworldwide plc (Nasdaq: SWLDY), the leading provider of spatial resource planning (SRP) solutions, today announced several new customers in the North American and Latin American utilities and telecommunications industries.

USA New Business Wins

Southern California Edison (SCE), the second largest electric utility in the United States, based on number of customers, recently selected Smallworld 3 to help standardize various geographic information systems used across its organization and to improve integration of operational processes. This utility serves over four million customers in Central and Southern California - a business territory covering 50,000 square miles and encompassing eleven million people.

Piedmont Natural Gas Company, Inc., of North Carolina, the second-largest natural gas utility in the southeast, selected Smallworld's spatial resource planning system to serve at the core of its enterprise system to enhance functions throughout its organization. Piedmont is an energy and services company primarily engaged in the distribution and sale of natural gas to more than 625,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Wisconsin Public Service of Green Bay, Wisconsin, selected Smallworld 3 to manage its facility network of 375,000 electric and 218,000 gas customers. WPS is utilizing Smallworld's world-class partner GeoData Solutions to migrate from a legacy IBM GFIS system to Smallworld's spatial resource planning system. WPS is also leveraging SmallworldWeb to distribute data throughout its enterprise.

Austin Energy, of Austin, Texas, recently selected Smallworld 3 for its enterprise GIS. Austin Energy serves 320,000 customers around the Austin, Texas area. For its outage management solution, Austin Energy chose Smallworld PowerOn(TM). Over 100 users will use Smallworld technology to view and analyze landbase data maintained by other departments and share electric data across the city and outside agencies.

Dakota Electric has also chosen PowerOn as its Outage Management System. Dakota, a long-time customer of Smallworld, purchased PowerOn to manage its electric network which serves approximately 80,000 customers in Minnesota. Dakota Electric plans on going on line in the second quarter of 1999. Dakota will also use PowerOn's web-based Executive Information System to distribute outage information across the enterprise.

Springfield Utility Board has also selected Smallworld software. Springfield Utility Board is a municipal, customer-owned utility with 27,100 electricity customers and 16,164 water customers.

"We are pleased at the size and scope of these new customer wins in the North American market, said Andy Stafford, Chief Executive Officer of Smallworld. "Our introduction of Smallworld 3, combined with our SRP technology's unparalleled flexibility, scalability and rapid implementation are clearly making significant inroads in this market. We believe each of these wins will serve as important references going forward."

Smallworld Wins in Latin America

Smallworld also announced three major contracts in Latin America, adding to its growing list of customers in that region.

Companhia de Electrecidade do Rio de Janeiro (CERJ), a major Brazilian electric utility serving 1,450,000 customers within the state of Rio de Janeiro, selected a suite of spatial resource planning solutions from Smallworld including Smallworld 3, PowerOn, SmallworldWeb, and the Power Technologies Inc. (PTI) Interface. CERJ made the purchase through CME Brasil, an authorized Smallworld distributor, and will use this suite to automate all aspects of the design, management and operations for their electrical distribution network.

Usinas y Transmisiones Electricas (UTE), the Uruguayan electric utility, has selected Smallworld 3, along with SmallworldWeb, an intranet application for desktop users. UTE is a state-owned company that generates, transmits and distributes electric energy. It serves more than 1.1 million customers distributed throughout Uruguay and has annual revenue of US$700 million.

Entel S.A. of Santiago, Chile, selected Smallworld's spatial resource planning (SRP) technology and Smallworld Communications to serve as the key SRP platform for its Corporate Information System. Entel (Empresa Nacional de Telecomunicaciones), operates and manages the largest and most modern long-distance telecommunications network in Chile.

"Our marketing achievements in Latin America are gratifying," said Mr. Stafford. "Going forward, we intend to continue leveraging our technology's unique strengths to expand our customer base."

Smallworld (www.smallworld-us.com), the world's leading spatial resource planning company, develops and markets software products that model real world assets and services, seamlessly integrating this information across the enterprise. Smallworld's object oriented technology offers fast implementation and easy integration so that its customers can increase revenues, improve customer service and better utilize their assets. The company, headquartered in Cambridge, England, has more than 500 customers in over 36 countries around the world.