PCMS

Cincinnati, Ohio, March 31, 2004—PCMS, Inc., an integrated software and services Company for the retail industry, has joined IBM’s ISV Advantage Initiative, a program designed to provide independent software vendors (ISVs) with technical and marketing support to help meet the specific information technology needs of small and medium business (SMB) companies. Customers are seeking solutions that help them better integrate processes and applications internally and externally and allow them to quickly respond to changing market opportunities on demand.

Vision BeanStore, PCMS’s signature Java POS solution, is designed to provide open, flexible, multi-channel retailing with leading edge functionality for the retail industry. The BeanStore solution is feature rich, globally accepted and proven on IBM’s Linux platform and retail framework.

Enabling Vision BeanStore on IBM WebSphere and DB2 Universal Database software on the Linux platform will help PCMS expand into the SMB market faster and more effectively than is possible with proprietary platforms.

“PCMS has large customers running BeanStore point-of-sale on IBM’s solution set and Linux, therefore it makes perfect sense for us to offer that kind of on-demand technology to small and medium size retailers,” said Chris Belk, President and CEO of PCMS, Inc. “PCMS and IBM are already working closely together, however the ISV Advantage Program elevates the relationship to the next level while strengthening our company’s market position.”

“We are pleased that PCMS has committed to IBM as a partner of choice by joining ISV Advantage,” said Buell Duncan, general manager, ISV & Developer Relations, IBM. “Collaborating with PCMS will ensure that we develop open solutions that are easy to maintain and cost effective for our medium sized business customers in the retail industry.”

The IBM WebSphere and DB2 family includes products that are designed and priced specifically for the small and medium business -- easy to install and manage, scalable to grow with a business, rich in functionality, and based on open standards to allow integration with existing software and hardware platforms.

PCMS will also work closely with IBM to expand its visibility in target vertical industries through various co-marketing and sales activities.

ISV Advantage is administered by PartnerWorld for Developers, the developer resource for IBM Business Partners. It is a worldwide program designed to help software developers reach broader markets, lower their costs of doing business, and take their products to market faster. For more information, visit http://www.ibm.com/partnerworld, or call 1-800-426-9990 in North America, 1-770-863-2048 outside North America.

About PCMS, Inc.
PCMS, Inc., located in Cincinnati, Ohio, is the North American subsidiary of the PCMS Group Plc. PCMS is a leading provider of integrated software and services for retailers. Vision BeanStore, our Java POS software, combines state-of-the art technology and functionality to address multiple retail segments.

Please note: IBM, the IBM Business Partner emblem, DB2, DB2 Universal Database, PartnerWorld and WebSphere are trademarks or registered trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.