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XYPOINT and Vicinity Deliver Consumers Location Services to Any Wireless PhoneXYPOINT, the nation's largest provider of phone location and wireless Internet services today announced a partnership with Vicinity Corporation (Nasdaq:VCNT), a leader in Internet-based marketing infrastructure services. The partnership will enable consumers to receive retail and service provider locations and driving directions to any wireless phone. The service works on any analog or digital handsets used by the nation's 85 million wireless consumers. XYPOINT and Vicinity's partnership will bring consumers location-relevant information via a voice user interface blended with text messaging. The partnership combines XYPOINT's expertise in wireless phone location and e-commerce with Vicinity's location content on major consumer brands and retailers. The service works on any wireless phone and will give consumers turn-by-turn driving directions to retailers and services, such as the nearest gas station, hotel, coffee shop, ATM, or pizza restaurant. Consumers also can search for where their brand name products are sold by using the same service. Just last week, XYPOINT announced a partnership with AltaVista to deliver its free wireless Internet service called WebWirelessNow(TM). The XYPOINT / Vicinity partnership will enable leading Internet sites like AltaVista to provide consumers with location relevant AltaVista content. Vicinity also provides AltaVista Shopping.com's comparison-shopping guide with its BrandFinder (sm) technology. "Now, consumers can look for directions to the nearest ATM, gas station, restaurant or hotel via their wireless phone." stated Ken Arneson, president and CEO of XYPOINT. "Our superior ability to merge mobile location, wireless, and the Internet with consumer-focused applications enable us to deliver services people really will use." "This partnership enables us to provide mobile consumers with on-demand location information whenever and wherever they might need it," said Emerick Woods, CEO and president of Vicinity Corporation. "We're thrilled with this relationship because it will enable our users to receive location relevant AltaVista content to their wireless phones," said James Anderson, director of commerce operation of AltaVista Company. The Vicinity/XYPOINT partnership will leverage XYPOINT's wireless 911 network services technology for the growing market of mobile e-commerce services. In a report last November, Forrester Research indicated that location-based services would be the killer app in wireless e-commerce. The service is designed to be simple and quick to use and will initially roll out in major metro markets during the second quarter of 2000. XYPOINT and Vicinity will offer wireless carriers and brand name retailers the opportunity to provide consumers the ability to find nearby businesses and get turn-by-turn directions through a voice user interface. Financial details of the partnership are not being disclosed. "With nearly 3 million subscribers, we are leading the county deploying wireless E911, explains Arneson. "That makes the roll-out of consumer location enhanced services even easier and gives our wireless carrier customers the ability to really deliver on the power of the Internet," Arneson adds. "Obviously, existing customers have a leg-up on commercial location services." About XYPOINT XYPOINT, a privately held Seattle-based company, is turning cell phones, pagers, PDAs and other wireless devices into personal remote controls for the digital age. Our technology and services enable content providers, e-commerce companies, and corporate enterprise networks to stay connected with their customers, even when those customers are nowhere near a computer. So no matter where a user is -- virtually anywhere in the world, they can bid in on-line auctions, trade stocks, respond to e-mail, and take part in many other "wired" activities. XYPOINT has been a leader in wireless technology since 1993, pioneering the wireless "location technology" vital to 911 service nationwide. We serve numerous major corporations -- including Vodafone AirTouch, GTE Wireless, U.S. Cellular and many others. For more information about XYPOINT, please visit www.xypoint.com. or www.webwirelessnow.com About Vicinity Vicinity Corporation is a leading provider of Internet-based infrastructure marketing services for brand-name Global 2000 companies. The company's click-and-mortar solutions, available in 14 countries and in 10 languages, enable its approximately 300 clients to direct consumers searching for a specific product or service to the nearest brick-and-mortar store that carries that product or service. Vicinity's customers include FedEx, Ford, GM, Hewlett-Packard, Hilton Hotels Corporation, Marriott, McDonald's, NEC, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Starwood Hotels, Taco Bell, Toyota, Levi Strauss & Co. and UPS. Its suite of private-label and co-branded content and services -- available via the Internet, cellular phones, WAP phones, wireless devices and landline telephones -- includes Business Finder(SM), Telephone Business Finder(SM), Wireless Business Finder(SM), BrandFinder(SM), SiteMaker(SM), MailMaker(SM), MapBlast!(R) Mapping Services, and Business Directory. Publicly traded on Nasdaq under the symbol VCNT, Vicinity's investors include CMGI (Nasdaq:CMGI). The company's strategic alliances include Inktomi (Nasdaq:INKT), Palm Computing (Nasdaq:PALM) and is a member of the Phone.com (Nasdaq:PHCM) Alliance Program. Vicinity was established in 1995, is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., and has an office in Lebanon, NH. Vicinity(R) is a registered trademark of Vicinity Corporation. Editor's Note: Try a similar Vicinity service by dialing 1-800-WHEREHOUSE (800/943-7346) and pressing one at the prompt. The new service between XYPOINT and Vicinity will operate exactly the same way, but will automatically detect the location of the caller and use it as the center of the search. CONTACT: APCO Worldwide Matt Gillingham, 206/239-0143 mgilling@apcoassoc.com or XYPOINT Corp. Tim Zenk, 206/300-1422 tzenk@xypoint.com or Fleishman-Hillard Laura Kraft, 213/489-8255 kraftl@fleishman.com www.xypoint.com
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