Alstom and Locus announce strategic alliance agreement

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, AND STUTTGART, GERMANY, 31 January 2002 — Locus Technologies (Locus) and ALSTOM Power Environmental Consult, GmbH (ALSTOM Consult) announced today that the two companies will enter into a Strategic Alliance Agreement (SAA). Locus provides comprehensive consulting, engineering, Internet-based remote control, automation, and information management services for the environmental market. ALSTOM Consult is a leading provider of services in the areas of compliance audits; permitting; storage tank management; environmental, health, and safety (EH&S) management; and all aspects of the investigation, assessment, and cleanup of contaminated sites.

The SAA primarily covers the area of advanced information technology in the environmental industry and will provide increased value to Locus’s and ALSTOM Consult’s industrial clients by formalizing and expanding the companies’ collaborative efforts on numerous environmental projects in Europe. Under the agreement, ALSTOM Consult will become a distributor and an operator of Locus’s award-winning, web-based suite of applications, LocusFocus(SM). This suite includes modules for: (1) automating, operating, and controlling process and treatment systems for water, groundwater, wastewater, air, and soil; (2) managing environmental data; (3) conducting site audits; (4) storing and retrieving documents; and (5) collaborating on-line. In addition to innovations in technology, Locus and ALSTOM Consult will also benefit from teaming on professional and technical environmental projects in Europe and North America.

“We are very pleased to formalize our existing and long-standing relationship with ALSTOM Consult. This agreement will help Locus better serve our European-based clients and will facilitate deployment of our web-based technologies in Europe. With ALSTOM Consult’s distributed network of offices throughout Europe, we can now extend our services to an important market for our company,” said Dr. Neno Duplancic, President and CEO of Locus.

“ALSTOM Consult is very happy to start using and bringing Locus’s web technologies to the European market. We are also excited to expand our current relationship to provide value added technologies to existing and new markets in Europe and North America,” said Dr. Peter Rissing, Managing Director of ALSTOM’s environmental consulting business.

The European market for environmental goods and services is currently $149 billion and is expanding at the rate of approximately $4 billion dollars per year (California Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency, 2001). With Locus’s strong presence in North America and ALSTOM Consult’s high profile in Europe, the SAA is expected to bring significant benefits to both companies and their respective clients.
ABOUT ALSTOM
ALSTOM Power Environmental Consult is a recognized expert in environmental management services with an emphasis on contaminated land management, due diligence service in mergers and acquisitions, implementation of EH&S management systems, and ISO 14001, as well as occupational EH&S services. ALSTOM Power Environmental Consult is part of ALSTOM Power, which offers a range of boilers, energy recovery, and environmental equipment. ALSTOM has annual sales in excess of 22 billion euros and employs approximately 120,000 people in over 70 countries. The Company is listed on the Paris,London and New York stock exchanges. More information on ALSTOM can be found at www.alsto.com.

Locus Technologies Announces Pocket PC Application for Environmental Health and Safety Audits and Inspection

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 16 April 2001 — Locus Technologies (Locus), a global leader in environmental information management, announced today that it has completed work on an electronic system for conducting and managing Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) audits and inspections. This system, named eSurvey, was developed for Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) using the Pocket PC operating system. Information recorded on the PDAs can be transferred to a company’s Intranet or to LocusFocus™, Locus’s award-winning environmental web portal. eSurvey brings Locus one step closer to its long-term goal of offering LocusFocus™ to clients, providing them with the tools and information they need to manage all EH&S aspects of their businesses over the Internet.

The use of Pocket PCs allows audits to be performed in facilities without Internet or Intranet connectivity, and in secure areas where a wireless device would not be allowed. The application consists of a set of screens, each with pull-down menus, data entry fields, and hyperlinks to other screens and information. After an inspection or audit is complete, all data that an auditor has entered into a Pocket PC can be uploaded to the main database. eSurvey has already been rigorously tested and successfully deployed and used by a major aerospace manufacturer in Southern California.

“eSurvey puts a valuable and cost-effective tool into the hands of EH&S inspectors,” said Neno Duplancic, President and CEO of Locus Technologies. “It provides access to inspection lists and pre-audit questionnaires that traditionally could not be hauled onto the audit floor. No longer do inspectors have to record findings once in the field and, again, enter these same findings into a database or spreadsheet back in the office. Moreover, with a local copy of their EH&S database on their Pocket PCs, auditors have access to historical information they may need when entering a finding. As a result, eSurvey streamlines the compliance process, decreases audit time, reduces resources and dramatically minimizes errors.”

The LocusFocus™ portal—Locus’s Environmental Information Management (EIM™) system, eWell (a wireless application for recording field data using hand-held Palm® Pilots), and automation and document management and collaboration capabilities—also includes tools to remotely control and monitor treatment systems. Locus’s web portal is hosted by Intel Online Services (IOS), which uses integrated technologies and proven processes to deliver optimal reliability, scalability, and performance at the highest levels of security to LocusFocus™ subscribers.