Escher's Riposte Solution Used in Portugal's Initiative to Rebuild East Timor's Postal Infrastructure

Boston, Mass. - May 8, 2000 - Escher Group Ltd, the world's leading provider of e-commerce solutions to the postal industry, today announced that its Riposte™ solution has been supplied to and deployed in East Timor's postal system by the Portuguese post office as part of the United Nations' reconstruction efforts. Riposte, Escher's core solution that offers a complete networking system for post offices, plays an integral role in rebuilding East Timor's postal infrastructure in the wake of the country's recent political and social turbulence.

The United Nations has appointed several countries to help rebuild East Timor's infrastructure and to establish order. Portugal, who became an Escher customer in 1999, has worked with Escher to provide the development assistance needed to customize Riposte for the implementation. Escher completed the actual customization and translation of Riposte into Portuguese, the language spoken in East Timor, in just one week. The implementation began with the post office in the capital city of Dili and a formal inauguration was held there on April 29, 2000 by UN authorities. The implementation will continue to be phased out to other parts of the country.

"We are honored to join in this effort to assist East Timor as it works to stabilize its political and economic structures," commented a spokesperson for Escher Group. "Riposte has a proven record of success in countries with challenging infrastructure issues. We are working with Portugal to create an efficient and reliable postal system for East Timor's 800,000 citizens."

Since its introduction in 1993, Riposte has quickly become the market leader in post office automation. Riposte's unique message-oriented architecture enables post offices to easily and securely automate mail services with minimal training. Its scalability and flexibility enables postal authorities to automate all postal transactions, even in the most remote locations and with limited networks.

"We initially chose Riposte for Portugal's postal system because it could easily be tailored to fit our specific needs," said Manuel Relvas, director of CTT Correios de Portugal in charge of the East Timor project. "We needed a solution that we could rely on to work across widely dispersed networks easily and cost-effectively. These capabilities from Riposte will enable us to move quickly and efficiently as we help East Timor rebuild its vital postal infrastructure."

About Escher Group, Limited

Escher Group Limited is a leading provider of distributed transaction processing and data management solutions and services. The company offers a business-to-business XML-based transaction management environment, used in thousands of locations worldwide. Since its introduction in 1993, Riposte®, Escher's flagship messaging solution, has grown to become the market leader in post office counter automation.

Trademarks: WebRiposte and Riposte are trademarks or registered trademarks of Escher Group, Limited in the United States and/or other countries. All other product names mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact Information:

Escher Group Limited
information@eschergroup.com