JOPLIN, MO., May 5, 2000 - At the Object Application Awards
2000 held in Vienna, Austria on April 12, 2000, The Empire District
Electric Company was awarded 1st place in the category of "Best
Implementation of a Distributed Application using Object Technology"
for it's new customer information system called Centurion. There
were over 100 worldwide entries, and Empire was the only American
company to win an award.
The Awards recognize the most outstanding customized computer
software using object-oriented technology. Awards are designed
tohonor innovative developers and companies whose applications
demonstrate major progress for the information technology.
The Object Management Group, sponsor of the Awards, is an international
consortium supported by more than 800 information system vendors,
software developers and end users with the mission tocreate industry
specifications to provide a common framework for software development.
The TINA Consortium (TINA-C), second sponsor of the Awards, was
formed in 1993 by 40 telecom carriers, suppliers and computer
manufacturers as a world-wide co-operative body todefine a common
software architecture for telecommunications.
Empire's Centurion is an innovative software application developed
entirely by a team of Empire employees to Support customer service
and billing. Though the team was relatively small, it incorporated
some of the bigger ideas in system design, creating one of the
more modular, plug-n-play, hardware and software independent customer
systems in the industry. Designed from the beginning to Support
emerging deregulation using the latest in technology, the system
gives the company a unique competitive edge. The ability to Offer
new services, and torapidly adapt the software tonew requirements
or hardware platforms, provides Empire with unprecedented agility.
Centurion has won several previous awards for its advanced features
and use of Java and Internet technologies.
About Empire District Electric Company
Empire District Electric Company is an investor-owned utility
that provides electric service to145,000 customers in a 10,000-square-mile
area covering parts of southwest Missouri, southeast Kansas, northwest
Arkansas, and northeast Oklahoma. It also provides water service
tothree Missouri communities. Empire recently announced plans
tomerge with UtiliCorp United.
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