New subsidiary to handle sales to wireless, handheld and CRM markets

Fairfax, Virginia, January 10, 2001 – Applied Technologies, Inc. (ATI), a locally based software developer and value added reseller, announced that it was forming a new subsidiary company, Trust Digital LLC. The purpose of this new company is to market, sell and support the software-based data security products developed by ATI over the past two years.

The new products use access control and encryption to secure and protect any type of data file. However, they are unique in that they are specifically customized to several high growth markets – Customer Relationship Management (or CRM) and handhelds or PDA’s (Personals Digital Assistants).

“Our history at ATI has been as a networking company that specialized in delivering secure networks and also CRM solutions from such vendors as GoldMine Software.” Said Kevin Shahbazi, Assistant VP of Marketing of both ATI and Trust Digital. “We invested heavily and developed several products that filled major holes we saw in these markets. We decided that a separate company was needed to launch the products to a broader base of resellers. Our goal is for Trust Digital to become larger than ATI so we set it up as a separate stock company to attract outside investment as well as better handle the logistics of distribution.”

Among the products to be transferred to Trust Digital are:

• GoldSecure that protects customer data files for GoldMine CRM software sold by FrontRange Solutions.
• HEATSecure that protects customer and asset files in HEAT Help Desksoftware also available from FrontRange Solutions.
• ACT!Secure that secures contact files in the popular ACT! contact management program from Interact Commerce.
• ForeverSecure, a security product for protection of any file type and the main client software for network implementations, particularly those that incorporate handheld devices. This is to protect Patient Medical Records, Customer, Financial, Banking, Personal, Corporate records and or databases.

Another new product, tentatively called PDASecure, secures handheld devices that use the Palm Operating System 3.0+ (OS). It is currently undergoing testing and evaluation and is to be released in March. It will be the first security product for Palm OS handheld devices that will be capable of contributing to the security of a desktop, network or enterprise to which the device may connect.

All of the products use the newly established Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) based on the Rijndael or “Rain Doll” algorithm selected in a competition by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The AES replaces the older DES standard now used by the U.S. Government, the financial services industry and others.

These new products are said to work with and complement other security software for virus protection and firewalls, providing an additional layer of protection to any system by protecting the most valuable asset, the data.

About Trust Digital LLC and Applied Technologies, Inc. (ATI)
Trust Digital LLC was formed as a subsidiary to market and support PDASecureÔ and other data security products developed over a two year period by its parent, Applied Technologies, Inc. (ATI) of Fairfax, Virginia. ATI has over ten years of expertise in network security and is a privately held Value-Added Reseller of GoldMine Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that also develops third party products as an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) for CRM vendors. ATI recently won an award from GoldMine as “Marketer of the Year” and “ISV of the Year” in 2000. Trust Digital is currently co-located with ATI, which is based in Fairfax, Virginia. Information on PDASecureÔ is available at www.trustdigital.com or by calling (703) 246-9198, FAX (703) 246-9496.

Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. Certain statements that are not historical facts including certain statements made over the course of this document may be forward-looking in nature. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance and achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements implied by such forward-looking statements.