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7-ELEVEN IMPLEMENTS NOVADIGM SOLUTION

Novadigm Inc, a leading provider of adaptive management solutions for software and content in enterprise and Internet environments, announced that 7-Eleven Inc has implemented Novadigm's e-wrap technology to automate the management of server-based software that powers retail systems in its chain of 5,300 U.S. convenience stores.

Novadigm's adaptive management solution enables 7-Eleven to rapidly change software-based retail services. This means that new services -- such as a sales promotion -- or an existing service -- such as the price of gasoline in a particular region -- can be deployed and changed quickly, reliably, and cost-effectively anywhere in 7-Eleven's nationwide network. In addition, Novadigm's solution is being used to manage the software driving 7-Eleven's innovative financial service kiosks in 95 trial locations in Florida and Texas. 7-Eleven's Vcom (for "virtual commerce") is a Web-enabled kiosk that blends the convenience of automated teller machines with the advantages of the Internet. The kiosk is a focal point for a changing variety of financial services such as ATM transactions, check cashing and money order and money transfers to start. National Vcom partners include American Express, Western Union and Certegy. Verizon will offer telecommunications services through Vcom in mid-2002.

7-Eleven's retail strategy is based on responding quickly to changing customer needs with a range of products and services tailored to anticipate weather conditions, special community events and the preferences of each store's customers. Success of the strategy relies on specialized retail systems software that resides on Windows NT servers at each store location to control its point of sale devices and self-service fuel pumps.

"Change is a way of life in convenience retailing," said Keith Morrow, vice president of Information Systems at 7-Eleven Inc. "Our success depends upon our ability to anticipate and respond to change in consumer trends, economic swings and even social fads. We need our IT systems to rapidly adapt to changing conditions so that we can offer our customers timely, tailored services to meet their needs."

"7-Eleven is an around-the-clock business -- there's no free time to shut down information systems to implement new software or services," said George Kellar, vice president of marketing for Novadigm. "With our e-wrap technology in place, 7-Eleven can quickly and reliably make changes to the software that powers its retail systems -- without disrupting business. This is a great example of how having a fully automated, adaptive software infrastructure enables an agile enterprise to quickly evolve its business systems in response to customer needs, and to tailor software configurations to match the precise requirements of each store."

The Windows NT-based kiosks were engineered jointly for 7-Eleven by ATM-maker NCR and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, originator of Mosaic, the pioneering Web browser. Novadigm's EDM, based on e-wrap technology common to all Novadigm products, is used to deploy and update the Vcom kiosks' applications along with the in-store server-based retail applications that run on point-of-sale terminals and fuel pumps at 7-Eleven stores.

"Previously, we used a semi-automatic software distribution product," said Jimmy Pitts, 7-Eleven systems manager for retail distribution systems. "It could take us up to one month to deploy new business services to all locations. That meant we were losing actual hard dollars out in the stores. With Novadigm's fully automated, adaptive management solution, software deployments are six times faster and we can ensure that the server applications and content are always up to date and available to support the store business."

Adaptive Infrastructure Enables Rapid Evolution of Business Systems

E-wrap technology was implemented for all 5,300 locations in three months by Novadigm's implementation partner EDS. Since then, just one 7-Eleven employee handles the day-to-day administration of the Novadigm solution.

"We've been able to achieve significant operational efficiency with just one person managing software on our in-store servers on a daily basis," said Pitts. "With Novadigm's automated solution, software deployments are highly reliable -- 99.5 per cent perfect on the first try with the 0.5 percent failure rate attributable to problems with network availability."

On average, every store receives two software deployments a month. Each deployment may be as large as 120 megabytes in size. Because 7-Eleven stores never close and because they are a linked by a low-bandwidth frame relay network, synchronizing large software transfers with the daily tempo of each store was essential to conserving bandwidth needed for routine operations.

Novadigm solutions ensure consistent and continuous delivery of services to customers because they quickly and reliably deploy updates to the in-store systems that drive many aspects of 7-Eleven's business. Once deployed, software and content are automatically maintained in a desired-state, which means less down-time and increased availability of the software-enabled service. Major server updates are scheduled and staged according to available network capacity and the activity level of each store. E-wrap technology's ability to optimize and control its use of bandwidth allowed 7-Eleven to expand the network time window available for server software deployments to 18 hours per day. That compares with the three-hour window allowed for software distribution with the previous, bandwidth-hungry method.

E-wrap Technology -- Providing an Always-Right Automated Service

Novadigm's e-wrap technology is an adaptive management platform that turns software into an "always right" automated service. Novadigm's suite of integrated products, based on the company's e-wrap technology, work seamlessly together as an end-to-end solution that can efficiently, reliably and scalably deploy and manage the full range of today's software and content, personalized for a wide range of computing devices across virtually any network. Novadigm's solutions give companies enormous "time-to-change" and "cost-of-change" advantages that enable them to compete aggressively in today's challenging business environment.

About 7-Eleven Inc

7-Eleven Inc is the premier name and largest chain in the convenience retailing industry. Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, 7-Eleven Inc operates or franchises more than 5,700 7-Eleven(R) stores in the United States and Canada and licenses approximately 16,000 7-Eleven stores in 17 other countries and territories throughout the world. During 2000, 7-Eleven stores worldwide generated total sales of more than $29 billion. Find out more about 7-Eleven Inc on the World Wide Web at www.7-Eleven.com.

About Novadigm

Novadigm is a leading provider of software and content management solutions for enterprise and Internet computing environments that enable organizations to reduce software management costs, speed time-to-market, expand marketing channels and open new sources of revenue. Novadigm's suite of integrated products, based on the company's e-wrap technology, work seamlessly together as the only end-to-end solution that can efficiently, reliably and scalably deploy and manage the full range of today's software and content, personalized for a wide range of computing devices, across virtually any network. Novadigm customers -- Global 1000 business enterprises, software vendors and service providers around the world -- report software management savings of 80 percent or more, time-to-market improvements of 70 percent or more, and reliability typically greater than 99 percent. For more information on Novadigm, please visit www.novadigm.com or call 1-800-626-6682.