Contact: Annie Chamlian, +61 (2) 9449-3222

Email: achamlian@openspatial.com.au

Open Spatial Meets the Challenges Facing Australian Water Authorities

AUSTRALIA, Sydney, Jan. 11, 2006 — Open Spatial Australia today announced that Wannon Region Water Authority, had selected it to supply its Corporate Spatial Solutions. Wannon Water provides water and wastewater services to 37,000 customers, in 34 towns and urban localities in South West Victoria and manage 2,600km of underground networks. Wannon Water is a recent amalgamation of three Authorities (Glenelg Region Water, Portland Coast Water and South West Water Authorities).

Wannon Water were seeking a spatial business solution to meet the increasing demands placed on Australian Water Authorities, like the ability to meet the Essential Services Commission’s performance criteria. These KPI’s are designed to deliver new efficiencies with greater customer care and improved water conservation strategies. Wannon Water also had the challenge of how best to consolidate the spatial data sets of three organisations into one.

After a thorough evaluation of available solutions Wannon Water selected the Munsys Water and Wastewater Applications based on Autodesk^® Map 3D and the enlighten product based on Autodesk^® MapGuide. The solution is based on the premise of Data Quality, Accuracy, Integrity and Remote Data Availability.

The popular Munsys (Spatial Data Management Business System) and enlighten, Open Spatial’s own browser based Spatial Distribution solution, are proving to be risk averse solutions based on pervasive technologies from Oracle and Autodesk.

Jamie Crowe, Asset Manager for the Hamilton zone and Convenor for the GIS working group commented “As part of the new Wannon Region Water Authority there is a need to standardise and consolidate the existing GIS capabilities of three previous organisations into one platform. The Open Spatial solution was chosen for this task because of the simplicity of use and the unique focus the software has to the water/wastewater industry. The chosen solution will provide a consistent approach throughout our new organisation with easy to use software that will deliver an integrated view of our spatial and corporate databases with a structured data maintenance platform. The open structure of the Oracle Spatial database at the heart of the system provides the basis for the integration with existing Customer and Asset Management databases (Aquarate and Conquest). Of particular interest to Wannon Water was to review and adjust the workflow processes to ensure efficient and cost effective data maintenance, while achieving higher data quality than currently exists. The Open Spatial solution had proven to achieve these aims at similar authorities around Australia.”

The Open Spatial solution provides a single location based user interface into the organisation’s many corporate applications and places total emphasis on minimising and eliminating data redundancies and data duplication experienced by traditional GIS implementations.

At the centre of the solution is the spatial functionality of the Oracle database. Oracle has created opportunities for companies, like Open Spatial, to focus on niche markets and build business solutions that deliver fast returns on investment.

Anthony Jahshan Managing Director of Open Spatial Australia commented that; “Our decision to base our solution on the spatial capability available within the Oracle database has enabled us to focus on spatial solutions for business problems in the water and wastewater industry”

Oracle claims that between 80 to 90 percent of their typical GIS user needs can be delivered directly from the database. The power of Oracle combined with the CAD heritage of Autodesk delivers a level of accuracy and precision that is unprecedented to the GIS community.

Open Spatial Australia is a recognised spatial data quality management company delivering accurate spatial data management to Utilities and local government agencies.

“Wannon Water is a progressive authority keen to adopt spatial solutions that deliver higher levels of accuracy and precision while reducing data redundancy and eliminating data duplication which deliver new levels of productivity” added Jahshan.

About Open Spatial

Open Spatial Australia Pty Ltd is an Australian company delivering geospatial solutions based on Oracle and Autodesk technologies throughout the Asia Pacific region. Recognised for delivering applications to Government and Utilities sectors throughout the region, all our solutions are based on internationally accepted open standards and world-class best practices. Open Spatial offers innovative spatial infrastructure solutions to managing spatial data from Survey through to Design, Construction and Ongoing Spatial Data Management. www.openspatial.com.au

About Munsys
Munsys Technologies (Pty) Ltd is a leading software development company, offering unique spatial solutions that are specifically tailored to the growing needs of worldwide utilities and government. www.munsys.com

All brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

© Copyright 2006 Open Spatial Australia Pty Ltd, Inc. All rights reserved.

We may make statements regarding planned or future development efforts for our existing or new products and services. These statements are not intended to be a promise or guarantee of future delivery of products, services or features but merely reflect our current plans, which may change.  Purchasing decisions should not be made based upon reliance on these statements.

The Company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events that occur or circumstances that exist or change after the date on which they were made.