Partner Press Release
Future Electronics And Agilent Technologies Have Successfully Implemented The RosettaNet PIP3A4 Manage Purchase Order

For Release October 10, 2000

MONTREAL

Production purchase orders using the RosettaNet PIP3A4 began flowing from Future Electronics to Agilent Technologies on October 4th, 2000.

Future Electronics implementation was a complete success: Two Supply Chain Partners exchanging a PIP in production, fully conforming to RosettaNet standards (RNIF, PIP, GTIN, D-U-N-S, UN/SPSC, Dictionaries), being connected to back-end system(s), and integrated in RosettaNet business process(es).

Future Electronics is committed to the growth of RosettaNet, and is actively involved in a number of its initiatives. The most honored role is that of being one of the twenty-nine companies that make up the Electronic Components Managing Board of RosettaNet. This role is fulfilled by our COO, Mr. E. Stephen Segal. Future Electronics, along with a number of other companies, made a commitment to RosettaNet that their companies would have a least one PIP in production by 10/10/2000.

Future Electronics and Agilent have chosen to implement the PIP3A4 Manage Purchase Order, a process which enables Future Electronics to send purchase orders to Agilent over the Internet. In return, Agilent sends a purchase order acceptance back to Future. The messages are secured using Secure Socket Layers (SSL) and Digital Signature technology.

In order to accomplish this, both partners were required to implement their own RosettaNet Infrastructure to handle the RosettaNet framework. In addition, each partner created the necessary interfaces to import and export data from their business systems.

Four project teams worked diligently to attain the same goal: Success on 10/10/2000. The Future Electronics Team is comprised of resources from both the IT and the Business community. The same applies to the Agilent team.

The project team also included the two RosettaNet Solution providers that were being used by Future and Agilent. Each team prepared its own project plan, which was ultimately merged to become the Plan for 10/10/2000.

A self-funded non-profit organization, RosettaNet is a consortium of major Information Technology (IT) and Electronic Components (EC) companies working to create and implement industry-wide e-Business process standards. These standards will define efficient business process interfaces between the supply-chain trading partners.

Partner Interface Process (PIP) is the new standard for businesses interaction. A PIP defines the business process and the messages to conduct this e-Business interface. Trading partners will engage in PIPs using the Internet as the pipeline to communicate. (www.RosettaNet.org)

Future Electronics is a world leader in electronic component distribution ranked 3rd in sales in the world. The Company is also the world's largest capacitor distributor. Founded in 1968, the Company has emerged as one of the most important entities in the electronics distribution industry and today, is recognized around the globe as a world leader in the industry. The Company employs over 5,500 employees in 220 offices in 35 countries around the world. Future Electronics' web site can be accessed at www.FutureElectronics.com.