Austria Joins Growing List of International Post Offices Who Have Selected Riposte

Boston, Mass. - February 11, 1998 - Escher Group Ltd, developer of Riposte, the world's leading postal automation technology, announced today that Post and Telekom Austria AG has contracted with Escher Group to automate 4000 postal counters across Austria, using the Riposte technology.

"We plan to begin our countrywide rollout of a state of the art counter automation system in June. With such an aggressive development schedule, we needed a system that specifically addressed the postal counter and met our requirements for quality, cost and rapid implementation," commented Gerhard Martinek, member of the Board of Management of Post and Telekom Austria AG. "Riposte also gives us the infrastructure to automate beyond our counter system, extending applications onto the Internet, supporting the mobile postal worker, and public access kiosks".

Post and Telekom Austria's selection criteria specified requirements for a high performance user interface, high reliability, security, and operating efficiency, and affordable cost of ownership, among other factors. Riposte's highly graphical touch screen user interface, secure message-oriented middleware, and standardization on low-cost PC hardware and software meets and exceeds requirements in each category.

Riposte is a complete networking and application development system that provides an end-to-end solution for Post Office automation. Designed to use the advanced security and heterogeneous networking capabilities of Windows NT, Riposte offers both a message-based distribution infrastructure and an object-oriented application development environment. Built on Microsoft's COM and ActiveX architecture, Riposte enables robust rapid application development and release management across a distributed network.

Post and Telekom Austria joins a rapidly growing number of international post offices that have selected Riposte as their postal infrastructure and automation system. "Riposte is much more than a counter automation system," said a spokesperson for Escher. "Postal services who implement the Riposte infrastructure are well-positioned to provide new services, such as increased international transactions, mobile networked services and solutions over the Internet." Currently Riposte is licensed to the post offices of Ireland, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, Australia and Denmark -- over 65,000 licenses worldwide.

The Escher spokesperson continued: "we are extremely pleased to be working with Post and Telekom Austria. This agreement strengthens Escher's competitive position in the international post office community, and we are confident that Riposte will allow the Austrian post office to expand their business and to meet growing competitive challenges.

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