Interactive Kiosks Placed In Jiffy Lube Stores: They Believe In The Internet

    RALEIGH, N.C. & BRANFORD, Conn.--April 25, 2001--

    Jiffy Lube(R)service locations to receive first Web-enabled Kiosks

    Netkey, Inc., the leading provider of kiosk software, announced today that Autopulse, Inc., (www.Autopulse.com), a leading automotive service technology company, has selected it to create special Web-enabled kiosks to educate consumers on automotive products and services such as maintenance scheduling, book value, auto insurance costs and more.
    Autopulse is currently testing Netkey-powered kiosks in seven Jiffy Lube locations in North Carolina. The first phase rollout of 200 locations will be completed in the second and third quarters of 2001, with additional locations expected to be announced later in the year.
    Primarily, Autopulse will use the Netkey-powered kiosks to better educate consumers about their vehicles, auto insurance, blue book values, and recommended service scheduling. But to keep consumers entertained while they wait around service areas, the Autopulse kiosks will also feature access to news, weather, sports and financial information from CNN, Weather.com, and Bloomberg.com. Users can also retrieve and send personal e-mail through Hot Mail, Yahoo, and AOL. Beyond the entertainment and education value, each kiosk will be able to solicit electronic customer feedback regarding products and services.
    The Autopulse kiosk system will also allow customers to shop on a variety of retail sites that have a revenue share agreement with the company. Among the well-known e-tailers who will be participating in the program are Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Columbia House, CDNOW.com, Tower Records, Sharper Image, Wine.com, Harry & David, GiftBasket.com, Brookstone, The Museum Store, Hershey's Gift Shop, Tupperware, Yardmart, Cooking.com, Garden.com, The Gap, L.L. Bean, Land's End, Brooks Brothers, and Patagonia.
    In the near future, participating retailers will receive Internet-based employee training modules to provide in-store training using the installed kiosks.
    "Netkey empowers companies like Autopulse to provide retail customers access to Web-based information and entertainment," said Netkey CEO Alex Richardson. "Netkey kiosk technology provides an enhanced experience for today's mobile consumer while increasing return on investment for the retailer through cross-marketing and up-selling opportunities."
    Autopulse recently began installation of Kiosks, Tread Tracker and Iwatch in Lucor, Inc.'s Jiffy Lube stores and customer lounges. Lucor, Inc is Jiffy Lube International's largest franchisee with 212 stores located in nine states. Jiffy Lube International, a subsidiary of Pennzoil Quaker State Company, is the largest quick oil change company in the world with over 2,200 locations. The quick oil change market has over 60 million customer visits annually spending 25 to 45 minutes at each location.

About Autopulse, Inc.

    The three basic components of Autopulse Networks are Tread Tracker, Iwatch and the Media Network. The Autopulse Media Network provides automobile service retailers several components including a Netkey-powered interactive, Internet kiosk technology designed to entertain and inform their customers while they wait for services to be performed. Tread Tracker is a real time electronic-auditing device designed to verify an accurate count of vehicles that are serviced at each store. The Iwatch remote video surveillance and management system strategically located cameras give digitally recorded and remotely monitored live business operations via the Internet.

About Netkey, Inc.

    Netkey, Inc. is the leading provider of scalable software products and services for self-service devices including kiosks, Web-enabled ATMs and managed PCs. Netkey offers a comprehensive Internet-based software platform for delivering content, services and applications to a broad range of customer-activated point-of-sale (POS) and point-of-information (POI) appliances. Leading retailers, banks and other organizations use Netkey's technology to deliver rapid return on investment and enhanced customer service. Netkey's software suite has become the authoring and server platform of choice for developers and systems integrators across the globe including NCR.
    Frost & Sullivan ranks Netkey as "the premier provider of kiosk software." Netkey's list of forward-thinking customers includes Yahoo!, J.C. Penney Co., Microsoft, E*Trade, Borders Group. Inc, Ford Motor Co. and Service Merchandise. Netkey is located in New York, San Francisco, San Diego, and Branford, Conn.
    Netkey holds U.S. Patent No. 5,761,071 for its browser kiosk system and U.S. Patent No. 6,078,848 for its peripheral integration software for browser kiosk system.