Electricité de France bases choice on performance, cost and reliability

SAN JOSÉ, Calif.—August 9, 1999—Lynx Real-Time Systems, Inc. and Empress Software, Inc. today announced they have been selected for a joint project by Electricité de France (EDF) to upgrade existing supervision and control systems for hydro-electrical power production in the French power grid. The project, incorporating both the LynxOS® real-time operating system and the Empress RDBMS (Relational Database Management System), will provide a secure, flexible and precise management system for the utility.

The two companies beat out competing solutions from Oracle, Sybase, Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) and QNX for the contract on the basis of performance, cost, reliability and ease of installation.

EDF produces more than 450 billion kilowatt hours for 13 million customers in France and abroad making it one of the world's leading power utility companies. Hydroelectric plants provide 13 percent of its production. Its existing management system runs on SCO/UNIX®-based PCs with flat memory files that could not provide the flexibility and real-time performance their new specifications required. The new system is a "black-box" solution for simple and cost-effective installation on a PC-based network that requires no administration. LynxOS provides for precise operations and management in real time while Empress RDBMS offers secure though flexible data management.

The new system allowed EDF to reduce installation time from 6 hours to 15 minutes with no loss of data and little necessity of shutdown. The network upgrade will be complete before the end of the year.

"We were impressed with the results from the combination of LynxOS and Empress RDBMS," said Georges Picq, responsable de l'Équipe MCO Hydraulique of EDF. "The two companies delivered a product with a small footprint with remarkably robust performance and reliability suited to the needs of our application and resulted in significant improvements over our preceding system. We intend to consider Lynx and Empress for the next phase of the upgrade to be implemented in the next 2-3 years."

About Empress

Empress Software, Inc. develops and supports the Empress Relational Database Management System. The Empress RDBMS is one of the most powerful and cost effective databases designed especially for embedded systems developers working with UNIX, Windows® or real-time environments. Since 1979, Empress has been used successfully worldwide in many fields, including image and voice management, telecommunications, medical systems, telephony systems, multimedia applications, geographical information systems and network management. For more information about Empress, please call (301) 220-1919. Check out their web site at www.empress.com or write to info@empress.com.

About Lynx Real-Time Systems

Lynx Real-Time Systems, Inc. provides the foundation software for reliable and high-performance applications in telecommunications, data communications, avionics, automotive, office automation and process control systems. Lynx supplies embedded software products including scalable real-time operating systems, a software framework for high-availability systems, development tools and technical support worldwide. These products are based on such industry standards as POSIX®, Java™ and CompactPCI to enable customers to leverage their investments in software and education. Lynx holds two patents for real-time software and has three patents pending. Founded in 1988, Lynx is a privately held company with offices in North America, Europe and Japan, with worldwide headquarters in San José, California.

LynxOS is a registered trademark of Lynx Real-Time Systems, Inc. Other brand or product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of the respective holders.

LynuxWorks press contacts

Kirsten Long Director, Marketing Communications LynuxWorks, Inc. USA +1 408-979-4404	Dave Reddy Weber Shandwick USA +1 650-868-4659	Peter van der Sluijs Neesham Public Relations Europe +44 1442-879222
Hamid Mirab Managing Director EMEA LynuxWorks Ltd. United Kingdom +44 208-906-9506	Elvia Soltero Weber Shandwick USA +1 408-685-0614