STAR's 10th New Member of the Year: Advent Resources Inc.

MCLEAN, Va., Aug. 27, 2003 -- STAR, the IT standards body for the retail automotive industry, has announced that Advent Resources Inc., has joined its membership. STAR membership has grown 25% this year alone to 39 organizations.

Advent Resources Inc. is a specialty Retail Service Provider, focused on software solutions for the franchised auto dealer. Its point of sale application contains multiple modules including: F&I, Internet Sales Lead Handling, CRM, and many more. Advent Resources serves over 300 large to very large franchised auto dealers in the USA and Canada.

STAR (Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail) is a non-profit, auto industry-wide initiative to create voluntary IT standards for the data elements and transmission format used by manufacturers, dealers, and retail system providers to communicate with each other. STAR's initiatives will result in a more efficient data exchange between dealers and manufacturers, with lower costs, more accurate and timely data, and increased levels of customer satisfaction.

"Our goal in participating in the STAR Organization is to enhance the connectivity between our clients' systems and the necessary data sources which are required to efficiently operate a dealership in today's competitive environment. We have already begun implementing portions of the STAR standards for Internet Sales Lead Handling, RDRs, and Credit Applications and we are very comfortable and excited about the STAR technical strategy," said Ysidro Salinas, CEO/CTO, Advent Resources Inc.

"We are pleased to see Advent Resources Inc. making a commitment to use STAR standards for a variety of their customers' business transactions. Hopefully, these standards can save development time and effort in helping their dealers communicate and transact business easier," says Tom Campisi, STAR Communications Chair.

  About STAR (www.starstandard.org )
  Source: STAR

The Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR) organization is the Information Technology (IT) standards organization for the retail automotive industry. The goal of the STAR organization is to use IT standards as a catalyst in fulfilling the business information needs of dealers and manufacturers while reducing the time and effort previously required to support this activity.

Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, STAR is a not-for-profit volunteer organization and its members include Dealers, Manufacturers and Retail System Providers (RSPs). As members, they are interested in developing, promoting, and administering voluntary IT standards in the retail automotive industry and improving the effectiveness, timeliness and competitiveness of the IT solutions needed within the retail automotive industry.

  STAR membership roster:

  Dealer Groups: NADA

Retail System Providers: ADP, AIAG, AFSA, Arkona, Auto/Mate Inc., DealerTrack, EDS Automotive Retail Group, MICMotorcycle Industry Council, NAT, Inc., NeoSynergy, LLC, PBS Financial Systems Inc., OAGI, Procede Software, Reynolds & Reynolds, RouteOne, Sprint, Sun Microsystems, The Cobalt Group, Tibco, UCS

Manufacturers: American Honda Motor Co., Inc., American Suzuki Motor Corp., BMW of North America, Inc., DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corp., Jaguar Cars, Kia Motors America, Mazda North American Operations, Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America, Inc., Nissan North America, Inc., Porsche Cars North America, Inc., Renault SA, Saab Cars USA, Subaru, Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Volkswagen of America, Volvo Cars of North America

  About Advent Resources (www.AdventResources.com )
  Source: Advent Resources Inc.

Advent Resources Inc. is a privately held vertical market software developer with headquarters in San Pedro, California. Its point of sale application contains multiple modules including: Vehicle Management, KeyRegister Key Management, Inventory Laser Bar Code System, Desking, F&I, CRM, Internet Sales Lead Handling, Daily Vehicle Rental, Service Merchandizing, and Sales Communication, Reporting and Statistical Analysis, Vehicle Department Accounting, Integration to legacy DMS providers, Integration to banks, credit repositories, and insurance providers and financial institutions. Advent Resources Inc. supports automotive retail clients from Honolulu to New York City and in Canada from its facilities.