Canadian Government chooses Nexor and xwave electronic directory solution

X.500 directory will enable government employees to conduct secure eGovernment transactions

Ottawa, Canada, GTEC, 16 October 2001 - Nexor and xwave have been awarded a contract by Public Works and Government Services Canada to provide hardware, software and services to implement the Federated Infrastructure National Directory Service (FINDS). FINDS will provide access to the information needed to identify and enable government employees and organisations to conduct secure transactions.

'This X.500 directory is a key piece of the infrastructure required to support the Canadian Government's continuing efforts to develop online services,' said Joe Greene, Vice President, Telecom and Internet Research, IDC Canada Ltd. 'A secure, internal network must be in place as one of the first elements of its overall Government Online strategy.'

The October 1999 speech from the throne stated, 'The Government of Canada is committed to being a model user of information technologies and to providing Canadians with electronic access to all government information and services online at the time and place of their choosing.' Added Ranald McGillis, Vice President, Central Business Unit, xwave: 'We believe the best-of-breed technologies proposed for this critical Government of Canada national directory will be an essential tool for doing business in government.'

The national directory service will store and quickly locate information on government employees including where they work, their telephone number and email address, as well as security-related information like public keys. With this information, eGovernment transactions and requests for information can be digitally signed and the identity of an employee positively confirmed.

FINDS is based on software that conforms to the X.500 directory standard, a standard chosen by the Canadian Government for its ability to support a large, distributed computing environment. As prime contractor, xwave will integrate and configure X.500 software from Nexor with hardware and software from Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc. Sun's highly available, reliable and scalable Sun Enterprise servers running Sun Cluster software will offer improved access and availability to the service. Nexor, a supplier of secure electronic messaging and directory products, will supply its highly scaleable X.500 software suite that stores and provides access to key information and shares that information with other X.500-conformant technologies. xwave will also provide on-going support and maintenance service.

About xwave

xwave, an Aliant company, delivers complete IT services to clients through three service lines: systems integration and software engineering, infrastructure services, and product fulfilment. These areas offer clients a broad delivery capability to plan, design, build and operate IT solutions that span corporate and operational systems, and to provide their infrastructure needs. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), xwave is one of Canada's largest and fastest growing companies, with more than $330 million in revenues and 2,400 people at offices in St. John's, Halifax, Moncton, Saint John, Fredericton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Dallas, New England and Dublin, Ireland. More information can be found at www.xwave.com.

For further information, please contact Wendy Draper