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Peace Software
www.peace.com

MIAMI, FL., December 10, 2002 – Peace Software today announced it has shipped Energy Version 7 to major U.S. utility Xcel Energy.  Energy Version 7 incorporates extensive regulated and competitive functionality to provide energy companies such as Xcel Energy with the strategic options of managing customers in regulated and restructuring retail markets; mass and complex commercial and industrial (C&I) markets; across multiple commodities, products and services.

In addition to its extensive competitive capabilities, EnergyVersion 7 applies energy industry best practices to the regulated world with full support for payment plans, rebates, pricing, collections, field service requests and premise and meter management. Using Energy, utilities can achieve improved customer service and operational efficiencies in regulated markets while gaining the flexibility to adjust to different market models in future years.

“Energy Version 7 is a significant release reflecting 18 months of focused development by 300 developers,” said Paul Grey, chief technology officer of Peace Software. “It incorporates new architectural features, the latest browser-user-interface (BUI) usability advances, new components and broad functionality enhancements gleaned from our deployment experience in numerous energy markets. Our first installation of Energy Version 7 at Xcel Energy will demonstrate the breadth of capability of the Energy system to support multiple regulated markets.”

Xcel Energy is a major U.S. electricity and natural gas company with regulated operations in 12 Western and Midwestern states. Formed by the merger of Denver-based New Century Energies and Minneapolis-based Northern States Power Co., Xcel Energy provides a comprehensive portfolio of energy-related products and services to 3.2 million electricity customers and 1.7 million natural gas customers through its regulated operating companies. In terms of customers, it is the fourth-largest combination natural gas and electricity company in the nation. Company headquarters are located in Minneapolis.

Energy Version 7’s customer management components include Prospects, Enrollment, Customer Care, Billing, and C&I Billing with the capacity to manage millions of customers and transactions in multiple markets and jurisdictions. Energy’s commodity management component, Electricity Supply, helps mitigate risk in the wholesale market with its forecasting and settlement tools. Energy’s Internet components—Energy B2C (Business-to-Consumer) and Energy B2B (Business-to-Business)—support Internet customer self-service options and electronic data exchange between market participants.

Energy Version 7 can be rapidly implemented as a full suite or in stand-alone components alongside existing legacy systems and third-party software. The new version includes an extensive array of APIs (application programming interfaces) using J2EE (Java 2 Enterprise Edition) architecture, a preferred industry standard that supports a variety of enterprise application integration (EAI)/middleware products and integration strategies.

About Peace Software
Peace Software is the world's largest software developer of energy customer management solutions. The company's browser-based Energy suite has been selected by leading regulated and competitive retail energy companies to drive efficient operations and provide excellent customer care for 13 million residential, commercial and industrial customers in 40 markets around the world. The innovative Energysuite can be phased into existing IT environments one component at a time, and new version upgrades are available every 12-18 months. Founded in 1984, Peace Software has offices in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. For more information, visit www.peace.com.

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