PRESS RELEASE

AVAANA™ and KOMPLEX establish Strategic Relationship for RFID for tracking underground pipes and cables

Exclusive relationship to develop and market solutions targeting the underground oil and gas pipeline, telecommunications, water and sewage industries across Asia, Australia and North America.

New Delhi, INDIA, DECEMBER 13, 2004 – AVAANA today announced its strategic relationship with KOMPLEX, a leader in the field of RFID for tracking and locating underground utilities and cables. AVAANA is KOMPLEX’s exclusive solutions partner for ASIA and other parts of the world. AVAANA will provide solutions and products for the oil and gas pipeline, telecommunications cables and water and sewage pipe industries, and other industries that may require locating and tracking of underground assets.

RFID is a data collection technology that provides suppliers, retailers, manufacturers and distributors with up-to-the-minute supply chain visibility, from inventory and logistics to freshness dates. RFID is powerful because it provides a unique identifying serial number to each and every item, unlike bar codes that typically have a unique number for a set of similar items. RFID offers high data capacity to store a lot more information that could be unique to a particular item in a particular process i.e. it can maintain unique state that is attributed to a particular unique item.

Commenting on the agreement, Bimal Sareen, Founder and CEO of AVAANA said, “This relationship of AVAANA RFID expertise and solutions and KOMPLEX’s proven RFID products puts together a compelling value proposition for public and private utilities, including owners and insurers of gas and oil pipelines, telecommunications cables, and water and sewage pipes by enabling them to track and identify their valuable underground assets. It also enables them to help ensure that problems are avoided when construction for utilities inadvertently cuts off, or causes disruptions to valuable services that citizens and customers depend on.” He added, “We regard RFID as a key technology that will help pipeline owners, insurance companies, state and national governments track and maintain their underground assets with care.”

Commenting on the agreement, Stefan Sivak, Director of KOMPLEX said “KOMPLEX’s strategic relationship with AVAANA is a key relationship for our company to devise and advance solutions related to the oil and gas and utilities such as telecommunications, water and sewage to help manage their underground pipes and cables. RFID requires expertise, and our proven products can help deliver value to customer globally via AVAANA in key parts of the world. AVAANA is our exclusive strategic partner for most of Asia, North America, and Australia.”

AVAANA works with customers across the entire value chain. It delivers Consulting Services at the Executive and other levels, Solutions and Application development of RFID Hardware and Software, and Distribution of select products.

About AVAANA™

AVAANA is an Innovation and Integration Services Company focused on the high growth RFID - Radio Frequency IDentification market. With a presence in Asia (India and Korea), and the United States, it provides companies complete, standards-based and custom RFID solutions to deliver a competitive edge to their businesses by enhancing operational efficiency and reducing costs. More information about AVAANA is available at http://www.avaana.com. AVAANA is HP’s Preferred RFID Solutions Partner and Expertise Center for RFID.

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