Press Release
Florida Power & Light Company Selects @Road For Mobile Resource Management
With 4.4 Million Customer Accounts, Florida Power & Light Company Names @Road as its Preferred Mobile Resource Management Vendor Following a Successful Pilot Program
FREMONT, Calif. –January 10, 2007 – @Road, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARDI), a global provider of next-generation solutions for Mobile Resource Management (MRM), today announced that Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) has selected @Road as its official MRM solutions provider. Under the terms of the corporate purchasing agreement, FPL intends to deploy the flagship @Road® GeoManager(SM) MRM solution designed to give FPL greater location intelligence and real-time visibility into the work of up to 3,000 field service technicians. FPL, one of the nation’s leading electric utility providers, serves 4.4 million customer accounts in Florida.
“After a competitive process to win the business, we are pleased to announce that FPL has selected @Road as its preferred provider for MRM,” said Krish Panu, @Road CEO. “This customer win is an illustration of the viability of our MRM solutions for the utility industry. We look forward to working with FPL and helping it reduce operating costs, increase productivity and enhance customer service.”
@Road GeoManager is designed to help utility and other service providers streamline field service delivery operations while increasing field technician productivity and enhancing customer service. GeoManager provides GPS-based location-relevant visibility into the daily activities of field technicians and their work - from actual vehicle routes, starts and stops, to customizable maps showing field technician location relative to important landmarks like customer locations or work yards. @Road GeoManager also allows businesses to upload customer and/or trip information into a routing engine to generate on-demand, actionable reports such as optimized routes and drive-time, fuel economy, city ordinance compliance and much more.
“Of the MRM vendors we evaluated, @Road demonstrated the utility industry expertise, capabilities and technological innovation we were looking for in a vendor for mobile resource management,” said Charlie Worsham, senior project manager for FPL. “In particular, we were impressed with @Road’s technology and overall solutions for field service management. They match up well to our needs and requirements for delivering year-round customer service excellence from routine field service calls to enhanced field technician dispatching during major storms, hurricanes or other periods of peak service demand.”
As part of the @Road GeoManager MRM solution, FPL plans to deploy a number of @Road MRM add-on features such as on-board vehicle diagnostics and reporting based on J1708 and OBDII industry standards. @Road Vehicle Diagnostics is designed to retrieve vehicle operating information from the vehicle's electronic on-board control module. Information generated from the J1708 or OBDII appliance is designed to be transmitted via the @Road iLM® in-vehicle wireless communication device to FPL managers in the form of daily or real-time online reports detailing such vehicle data as fuel usage and Power Take-Off (PTO), as well as engine fault codes related to oil pressure, coolant temperature, excessive engine idling and more. This information can be used to remotely monitor important engine parameters for proactive preventative maintenance, which is designed to help reduce vehicle down time, fuel and other operating costs and enhance customer service.
FPL also plans to leverage @Road MRM tools for data integration with back office applications. This data integration is based on NMEA (National Marine Electronics Association) industry standard data feeds. NMEA has become a developer, maintainer and distributor of various documents and standards related to the marine electronics industry.
FPL can use @Road generated data and other information for turn-by-turn directions for field service technicians and or for optimized asset management to include vehicle and equipment utilization reports. FPL can also use @Road data feeds to generate customized reports combined with dispatch and time keeping systems. @Road MRM data feeds are also designed to give FPL more effective dispatching during major storms, hurricanes or other periods of high field service demands.
About @Road
@Road, Inc. is a leading global provider of solutions designed to automate the management of mobile resources and to optimize the service delivery process for customers across a variety of industries. @Road delivers Mobile Resource Management solutions in three key areas: Field Force Management, Field Service Management and Field Asset Management. By providing real-time Mobile Resource Management infrastructure integrating wireless communications, location-based technologies, transaction processing and the Internet, @Road solutions are designed to provide a secure, scalable, upgradeable, enterprise-class platform, and are offered in on-demand software delivery, on-premise or hybrid environments that can seamlessly connect mobile workers in the field to real-time corporate data. @Road is headquartered in Fremont, Calif., and has a global presence with offices in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information on @Road solutions, visit www.road.com.
About Florida Power & Light
Florida Power & Light Company is the principal subsidiary of FPL Group, Inc. (NYSE: FPL), nationally known as a high quality, efficient and customer-driven organization focused on energy-related products and services. With annual revenues of more than $12 billion and a growing presence in 26 states, FPL Group is widely recognized as one of the country's premier power companies. Florida Power & Light Company serves 4.4 million customer accounts in Florida. FPL Energy, Inc., FPL Group's energy-generating subsidiary, is a leader in producing electricity from clean and renewable fuels.
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Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed in this news release are forward-looking statements involving risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. These factors, risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to the ability of @Road and Florida Power & Light to comply with the terms of the agreement between them, the ability of @Road solutions to help Florida Power & Light and other @Road customers reduce vehicle down time, reduce fuel and other operating costs, increase productivity and improve customer service, the ability of @Road to successfully deploy MRM solutions, and general economic and political conditions. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in the @Road Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2006, the @Road Annual Report on Form 10-K/A for the year ended December 31, 2005 and in @Road’s other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
@Road, GeoManager and the @Road logo are trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks of @Road, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks or service marks used herein are the property of their respective owners.
Media Contact:
Bob Stern
@Road Media Relations Manager
510-870-1360
bstern@road-inc.com