ACUNIA Teams Up With Tele Atlas

Leading provider of telematics technology demonstrates use of Tele Atlas
geodata for the development of location-based telematics services

    DETROIT and LEUVEN, Belgium and GHENT, Belgium, May 15 ACUNIA, the leading provider of next-generation telematics technology, and
Tele Atlas, the digital mapping world leader, today announced a partnership
agreement to demonstrate the use of geodata in the development of location-
based telematics services.
    ACUNIA is well-known for its Open Telematics Framework, the first fully
functional, end-to-end, Java-based open software design for the entire
telematics pipeline.  The single-platform, protocol-neutral, lightweight
architecture system has won industry acclaim because it can be quickly and
easily upgraded on-the-fly to add services and accommodate new technologies.
    Using the Open Telematics Framework technology of ACUNIA, both companies
will set up a demonstration project in which geodata from Tele Atlas will be
shown in a next-generation environment, using a MAGIC-compliant, distributed
geo Java model.
    In the project, ACUNIA will develop and demonstrate basic navigation and
Floating Car Data services.  Geo data will be downloaded in the vehicle, while
at the same time, vehicle-data will be used to dynamically upload and modify
Tele Atlas data on the application side.  ACUNIA will setup the demonstration
architecture at its headquarters in Belgium, including application centers, a
Communication & Control Center and test vehicles.
    "This new partnership with a world leader like Tele Atlas clearly adds to
the further development of ACUNIA's leadership position as a supplier of next-
generation telematics technology.  Using the results of this demonstration
project, Tele Atlas will have an immediate advantage in becoming the preferred
supplier of geo data to car makers and telematics operators," said Marc Maes,
co-founder and co-CEO of ACUNIA.
    Alain De Taeye, founder and CEO of Tele Atlas, adds, "The partnership is
an excellent win-win arrangement.  It introduces Tele Atlas to automotive
telematics developers as the preferred source of geodata and provides ACUNIA
with access to our database, which has the largest, most detailed and most up-
to-date digital map in the world."

    ACUNIA
    Founded in 1996 (as SmartMove), ACUNIA (http://www.acunia.com ) is a leading
provider of next-generation telematics technology.  Headquartered in Leuven,
Belgium and with an office in Frankfurt, Germany, the company employs about
120 people worldwide.  The company's U.S. subsidiary, ACUNIA Inc., has offices
in Cambridge, Mass. and Detroit, Mich.
    ACUNIA was recently selected by General Motors of Europe to develop its
future telematics infrastructure, and also has announced partnerships and/or
demonstration projects with, among others, Infineon Technologies, BMW Group
and GenRad.

    Tele Atlas
    Tele Atlas is the world leader in digital mapping.  It has the largest
digital maps of both Europe and North America -- covering around 290 million
inhabitants in Europe and giving complete digital map coverage of the United
States, with 265 million inhabitants.  The company is actively increasing
coverage worldwide and is continually updating, refining and adding detail to
existing map databases.  Tele Atlas also has significant and growing
activities, with its data being used in business applications such as location
based services, telematics, fleet management, GIS, geo-marketing and other
geodata applications.
    Based in Ghent, Belgium, Tele Atlas employs 1,400 people in 15 countries,
including the U.S. and India, and maintains its data through partnerships and
continuous field surveys.  Tele Atlas is a founding member of "MAGIC
Services(TM)," and has been listed on the Neuer Market of the Frankfurt Stock
Exchange since May 2000.

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